Standardization and Simplification in Public Buildings Modernization

The Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU) (hereafter – “EED”) approved in 2012 obliges Member States, for the period of 2014–2020, to renovate each year at least 3% of public buildings of general state area owned and used by central entities. This obligation results in the need to modernize 700,000 m2 area of 3,500-4,000 public and government buildings by 2020, which will require around EUR 440 million of investments, or annually 140,000 m2 public and government buildings that would account EUR 88 million of investments, which cant be achieved using only budget and EU structural funds resources. Because of the legal restrictions in Lithuanian, most central government buildings users are not able to borrow on their behalf. In order to address this issue it was decided to apply ESCO model and start to develop ESCO market in Lithuania.
In 2015 VIPA had established ELENA group (administrated by EBRD) containing the Consortia, the Energy Agency (hereafter – “EA”), the EN and the VIPA. Team of consultants was hired to support the VIPA in scaling up commercial energy efficiency projects. The project produced detailed steps of implementing ESCO projects in buildings for public authorities, procurement documentation (standard terms and conditions, recommendations for procurement activities) and standard ESCO agreement. This allowed for public authorities to have less expertise and rely on professionally prepared process resulting in shorter ESCO project implementation process.