Improved evaluation criteria for energy efficiency investments
Partners: Regional Council of South Karelia; Lappeenranta University of Technology
Type: assessment and evaluation of projects
The choice of the Action Plan is based on the observation that selecting the projects to be realised among a set of different options is often challenging. Project evaluators must deal with high numbers of proposals, but they are burden by budget constraints. Public administrations and other intermediaries of structural funds are charged to select the most suitable projects to have sustainable results. The Action therefore concerns the assessment and evaluation of projects and notably the introduction of effective and innovative tools to be applied in the Finnish national operating programme of EU structural funds (ERDF), that is PP7 and PP8 Policy Instrument.
The background was also provided by S3UNICA during the Exchanges of Experiences. Common ambitions in terms of energy efficiency link the South Karelia Regional Council to the Administration of the Italian Autonomous Region Friuli Venezia Giulia and this opens the way to potential sharing of technologies and practices. South Karelia Project Partners also identifies the role of sharing experiences for improving energy efficiency in Romanian university campuses and the importance of enhancing autochthonous renewable energy sources in Andalusia’s energy strategy.
The general goal of the Action is to improve the capacity of the Regional Council, and, consequently, the Greenreality Network, to utilise EU funds and the resulting innovation opportunities. It consists therefore of an “improvement of evaluation criteria and methods when assessing project proposals and results of finished projects in energy efficiency and renewable energy related investments”. The guideline to define an effective methodology will take into consideration two main aspects:
1. what criteria to be included are relevant for this kind of project
2. how to keep the methodology simple not to slow down the process.
South Karelia is highly involved in Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) projects despite the constraints of a small regional budget. At this regard, the expertise coming from the Greenreality Network plays an important role and it will also be a key model to realise this Action Plan. Greenreality Network contributes to generate innovation in South Karelia also by creating mutually beneficial partnerships among the players of the region. Collaborative approaches and partnerships will be important tools for defining common evaluation standards for future projects. Consistent with this model, the selection of players involved in the Action Plan includes the principle of the Quadruple Helix, bringing together educational institutions and technology and services providers (science), private and public companies as well as buildings owners and managers (industry), municipalities (society) and the South Karelia Regional Council (policy).
At the end of the Action, new energy efficient evaluation criteria and method for energy efficiency investments in the ERDF projects will be introduced. However, the long-term goal is that this outcome will be mainstreamed into several regional policy instruments.
