Bulgaria and Azerbaijan exchange know-how in energy efficiency of buildings

Our country's experience in financing and implementing energy efficiency measures in multi-family residential buildings was presented by Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Angelina Boneva and Director of the Housing Policy Directorate Dobromir Vassilev to a delegation from Azerbaijan.

Representatives of the Ministries of Economy and Energy and of the State Agency “Renewable Energy Sources” under the Ministry of Energy attended the meeting from the Azeri side.

In Azerbaijan, a project is underway to establish a National Energy Efficiency Fund and develop a Roadmap for a national building renovation programme. Therefore, the delegation is visiting Bulgaria in order to get acquainted with the practices applied in our country in the field of energy efficiency in residential buildings.

Of interest to the delegation representatives were issues such as the evaluation of project proposals, success indicators for investments in energy efficiency in residential buildings and training programmes for those responsible for submitting project proposals.

The discussion focused on the funding process, the application and the evaluation criteria for project proposals.

Deputy Minister Boneva presented the lessons learned from the National Programme for Energy Efficiency of Multi-family Residential Buildings, as well as the current procedure for energy renovation of the residential building stock under the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan. The approximately 3,000 proposals received in the first phase of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan procedure are being evaluated, she informed. The deputy regional minister said that at the same time, work is underway to create a scheme with a 20% self-financing of homeowners, with the idea that this share will be supported by ESCO companies or through a financial instrument - as a guarantee for commercial banks to provide low-interest loans. The possibility of energy poverty vouchers is also being explored - in a situation where there is interest in a building joining the programme but some of the owners in the building cannot afford the required deductible. The idea is to give vouchers for energy efficiency investments instead of subsidies, she stressed.

In the case of partial renovation, the return on investment is 5 to 7 years. This period is reduced to 3 - 4 years when it comes to renovating the whole building with all apartments and common areas, incorporating renewable sources, improving the heating system, Deputy Minister Boneva said.

The criterion of efficiency of investments is the most important in the evaluation of the projects submitted in the first stage of the procedure for energy renovation of residential buildings under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. A small bonus is given to municipalities that rely on unifying the appearance of the buildings, explained Dobromir Vassilev. He gave the example of the municipality of Burgas, where the National Energy Efficiency Programme has applied a uniform approach to the vision of the buildings in a given district when renovating them. In response to a question, Vassilev stressed that over the last 15 years municipalities have gained experience and have built capacity in applying for projects, including energy efficiency.