The purpose of the public tender is to improve the competitiveness of SMEs in the field of tourism, by promoting measures for the use of RES and implementing EE
The objectives of the public tender are:
-reduction of SME operating costs due to the introduction of material and EE measures or greater use of RES,
-reducing the environmental impact of SMEs,
-increasing the added value of SMEs,
-reducing the development gap of SMEs in the field of tourism
-reduction of GHG emissions.
The amount of the grant is max 75% of the eligible investment costs, excluding VAT in the area of the East and 70% for the West of Slovenia.
Available sources for the year 2020: 9.088.731,29 EUR for the East and 1.725.000,00 EUR for West; In total for the period 2020 – 2023 up to 21,5 mio. EUR is available.
The eligible costs of the call:
-energy renovation of facilities and material efficiency
-information and communication costs
-costs of external services.
The first call was published in 2019, approx.16 mio EUR was granted for 125 applications.
The main stakeholder: Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, Government Office for Development and European Cohesion Policy and SMEs in the field of Tourism.
In 2019 there were more than 25.000 SMEs in the field of Tourism in Slovenia. According to EU data, the tourism sector contributes up to 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions in EU and the same percentage goes for Slovenia. In this respect, the tourism sector contributes around 550kt (CO2 ekv) of emissions per year in Slovenia. With the tourism sector, SMEs implementing EE can predict GHG emissions savings is 270 kt (CO2 ekv) annually.
Resources needed
The support offered requires little additional resources coming from SMEs themselves. The grant amount is up to 75%/70% of the eligible investment costs, excluding VAT, meaning 130.000EUR average co-financing share per SME.
The co-financing share comes from cohesion fund.
Evidence of success
SMEs have to achieve energy savings given at the application stage, calculated as a difference of ACTUAL and EXPECTED(after investment in EE&RES) energy consumption & CO2 emis.. Energy experts have to prepare a building physics (simplified energy audit) before and after the renovation.
According to the approved applications, we can conclude that energy consumption can decreased in average for 50% and CO2 in average for 60% for SMEs receiving the grant
Also, 100 new green jobs have been created
Potential for learning or transfer
The presented good practice is directly targeting non-energy intensive SMEs in the field of tourism, which is novel but replicable across other regions across the EU.
With implementing EE, RES measures, SMEs in the tourism sector will decrease their energy consumption, hence a reduction in their energy bills and GHGs.
From 2019 call, it is evident that success is based on the applications approved for co-financing, it is expected that the energy consumption in SMEs will decrease by least for 50%, with consequential reduction in C02.
Using two concrete illustrations - SMEs that have already implemented co-financing measures, the energy consumption has decreased at least 50%. For one of the SMEs receiving the grant the energy has decreased from 124 kWh/m2 to 61 kWh/m2, but for the second SME savings are much higher, as their energy consumption has reduced from 131 kWh/m2 to 53 kWh/m2, providing 60% of energy saved. For both mentioned SMEs, emissions have decreased by at least 50%.
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Tags: Audit, Energy, Green, Renewables, Resource, SME
