— last modified 20 September 2017
Yesterday, Eurostat published a guidance note on how to record Energy Performance Contracts in government accounts. The new guidance note clarifies and makes it easier for governments to invest in improving the energy efficiency of their buildings and infrastructure by using Energy Performance Contracts.
The new rules enable energy efficiency investments to be accounted off government balance sheets, with investment costs spread over the duration of the contract, without contributing to government deficit and debt. The guidance promises to unblock suspended public investment decisions, especially in countries where funds are limited.
“Removing this public investment barrier is a timely and concrete step to bring down energy efficiency investment costs and maximise the benefits of the Energy Union” says Stefan Scheuer, Secretary General of The Coalition for Energy Savings. “We congratulate the European Commission for its leadership in creating an enabling environment for energy efficiency. The market now needs to be kick started with ambitious targets and measures. EU’s legislators will be further encouraged to increase the energy efficiency ambition to 40% by 2030.”
The Energy Efficiency Directive is currently under revision in order to set a 2030 target and post-2020 annual savings requirements. While higher ambition delivers lower energy costs for users, more local jobs and increases energy security, financing the upfront investments costs requires policy efforts. Structural bias against energy efficiency investments, as was the case in public deficit accounting rules, unnecessarily increased the costs. This was in contradiction to the Energy Union’s principle of putting energy efficiency first.
