Aim of the Project

The main aim of the project is to promote and stimulate SME networking for the provision of energy services with EPC.

To achieve this aim the EPC+ project will attempt to remove some of the technical and contractual barriers that currently exist in the EPC market in each partner country.

Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) is generally looked upon favourably, but its implementation can be complicated and lengthy. The reason lies mainly in the procurement law provisions and the long-term and complex contracts, which impede a real breakthrough in the spread of the EPC methodology.

The other main barriers for the implementation of EPC in SMEs are:

• The transaction costs for procuring energy services are too high
• Investments and project sizes are too small
• It is difficult to obtain financing for such small projects
• High costs for guarantees, measurement and verification procedures

Specific Objectives

The ultimate goal of the EPC+ project is to reduce transaction costs of energy service packages drastically so that smaller investments and projects in SMEs become possible for companies offering energy services. This can only happen if both the technical solutions as well as the contractual issues of energy services are highly standardized. The energy services offered can be either partly or wholly financed with innovative financing solutions, or may be more service-oriented solutions with guaranteed energy performances.

The major outputs of the project include:

• the development of commercial, standardized energy service packages for SMEs in each participant country. Each participant country will develop energy service packages that suit the specific and particular requirements of their country. These will include a standardized technical solution for a specific market sector, a model contract and, where possible, a financing solution.
• the implementation of pilot projects for the EPC+ packages in each participant country
• the set-up and management of clusters of companies (SPINS) in each participant countries. These clusters will offer energy services to the SME market
• the training of these clusters of companies in each participant country
• the development of an international e-market for energy service providers.

Important Updates

• Project kick off meeting held in Athens, April 2015.
• Training Needs Survey completed – thanks to all the SME’s who participated in this survey to help us gather information on EPC knowledge and understanding in Ireland.
• Introductory workshop – Esco-Network Establishment, Thurles, 23^rd 2015
• 2^nd Partner meeting, Vienna, October 2015
• Recordings from the EPC Training Event in Cahir, Co Tipperary on March 16, 2016
• EPC+ partners pictured at a partner meeting in Cahir in March

Funding

Funding is provided by the EU Commission – H2020

Duration

The project will run for a period of 36 months from April 2015 to March 2018

Partners

Partner	Name	Country
Kentro Ananeosimon Pigon ke Exoikonomisis Energeias	CRES	Greece
Arbeitsgemeinschaft ASEW	ASEW	Germany
Factor4	Factor 4	Belgium
Grazer Energieagentur GmbH	GEA	Austria
E7 Energie Markt Analyse GmbH	E7	Austria
Tipperary Energy Agency	TEA	Ireland
Escan s.l ESCAN	Escan	Spain
Instituto de Sistemas Robotica	ISR	Portugal
ESCO ITALIA S.r.L	ESCOIT	Italy
Stredisko pro efektivni uzivani energie, o.p.s	SEVEN	Chech Republic
Institut Jozef Stefan	IJS	Slovenia
HELESCO	Helesco	Greece
Sdruzhenie Chernomorski Izledovatelski Energien Tsentar	BSERC	Bulgaria

More details about EPC+ are available on the project website here – http://epcplus.org/

To participate in the EPC project please contact Liam O’ Dwyer at liam@tippenergy.ie