EuroPACE, a three-year project that kicked off in February 2018, will develop a scalable on-tax financing mechanism to unlock the massive potential for deployment of energy-saving and energy generation technologies. Inspired by US PACE, a successful project developed in California in 2008, EuroPACE will address fundamental challenges to energy efficiency investment:
With a market-based approach—EuroPACE will deploy private capital as upfront financing to homeowners, effectively reducing the reliance on grants and subsidies.
By de-risking investment in energy efficiency—long-term repayment obligations will be tied to the property rather than its owner; as such, municipalities will serve as a conduit for repayment through a levy to be collected with property taxes.
With technical assistance—homeowner decision-making will be optimized by training service contractors who are held accountable by a comprehensive consumer protection code.
With aggregation and standardisation—standard underwriting requirements and project performance guidelines will enable project aggregation and the ability to issue "green bonds."
The EuroPACE Project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 785057.