Brussels/Bratislava, 06/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has successfully completed the first phase of its finance programme for energy efficiency and sustainable energy initiatives in Slovakia where, between 2007 and 2010, investment of €60 million in urban renewal schemes changed the lives of 46,350 people who saw their energy bills tumble by 32% thanks to buildings better insulated and better heated to cope with the rigours of the Central European winter.
In amongst depressing Soviet-style buildings with their grey, dilapidated fronts and decades-old wooden window frames, the residential building at Toryska 1-5, in the suburbs of Bratislava, immediately catches the eye with its new brilliant white cladding and contrasting bright orange vertical stripes highlighting the new PVC windows frames. For the full refurbishment of this 1976 building, with its 48 flats on eight floors and 129 tenants, the EBRD-funded SlovSEFF (Slovak Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Finance Facility) provided €298,700 through loans to local banks of a total investment of €320,000, own sources providing only €21,300. Wall, floor, ceiling and balcony insulation, new windows, more efficient boilers, reconstruction of stair wells and cladding of the external walls have brought annual energy savings of 835 gigajoules, 37% energy savings compared with the original state and a reduction in CO2 emissions of the order of 45 tonnes per year.
Following the example of this residential renovation project, 250 further urban renewal projects throughout Slovakia have received 85% of the support lent by the EBRD since 2007 as part of the first phase of the SlovSEFF - €60 million - to local partner banks, the Dexia Banka Slovensko, the Slovenska Sporitelna, the Tatra Banka and the VUB. The remainder of the EBRD loans were granted to energy efficiency initiatives in the industrial sector (12% of funds) and renewable energy (3%). In all, these investments have brought annual energy savings equivalent to 282,613 MWh of electricity, or the production of a 100 MW wind farm, and carbon emission reductions of 63.564 tonnes per year. Once all the projects are completed in 15 years, total reductions will amount to 953,460 tonnes, which corresponds to over a third of the emissions produced by Slovak capital city Bratislava. In addition, primary energy savings will by then amount to over 4 Terawatt hours, the equivalent of the annual production of a large coal-fired power station.
“Since its beginning, SlovSEFF has been very successful especially in supporting energy efficiency improvements in buildings. The programme has also proved very successful in leveraging donor funds - during the first phase every euro coming from donors generated €6.4 of investment in energy efficiency”, EBRD Energy Efficiency Analyst Daniela Diedrich-Ristic told Agence Europe, which was invited to Bratislava by the EBRD at the end of November. ENVIROS, a Czech environmental consultancy providing local expertise to SlovSEFF, says that households in Slovakia can achieve 30-40% energy savings simply by changing their windows and installing insulation. Businesses can also make savings: one private cement producer, Turna nad Bodvou-based VSH, has reduced its energy costs by €850,000 per year thanks to a costly reconstruction programme - €6.6 million supported by the €2.34 million SlovSEFF loan - in order to meet strict environmental and energy efficiency standards.
The first phase of SlovSEFF, between 2007 and 2010, offering loans between €20,000 and €2,500,000, and also grants of between 7.5 and 20.0% of the total loan amount and free technical assistance, was launched in cooperation with the Slovak Ministry of Economy, which freely admits that, initially, it had its doubts as to the real success the initiative would achieve. The Slovak government supported SlovSEFF through the International Decommissioning Fund for the Bohunice nuclear power plant, making €15 million available in grant funding for advisory services and investment incentives for project developers.
In its first phase, SlovSEFF investment amounted to a total value of €77.8 million, including funding from private sector investors and the residents themselves. In March 2010, the EBRD launched the second phase of SlovSEFF with an additional €90 million of funding offered to both new and already participating banks. SlovSEFF is only one example of the many successful sustainable energy financing facilities that the EBRD has already established. In its Sustainable Energy Initiative, the EBRD has invested €8 billion in 431 projects (the total project value of which is €44 billion) in 29 countries in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and the Balkans (61%), Russia (20%), Turkey (10%) and Central Asia (5%). The expected reduction in CO2 emissions as a result of all these projects is 45.8 million tonnes per year. (EH/transl.rt)