The international project FIRECE (Innovative Financial Instruments for Industry Low Carbon Energy Transition in Central Europe), in which our company participated, set itself the task of helping to set up financial instruments in the countries of the Central European region. Its overall objective was to strengthen the capacity of the public sector to plan regional low-carbon strategies to support the implementation of energy savings and the deployment of renewable energy in industry – specifically using support in the form of financial instruments.

The project placed a strong emphasis on training and exchange of experience. During the three-year duration of the project, several study tours were held, which were attended by representatives of Czech authorities (Ministry of Environment, MIT, SFŽP), and national and international seminars. Our company was also responsible for the development of an e-learning training course on energy planning and financing(http://firece.enviros.cz).

Furthermore, we have developed a model that allows to quantify their economic and environmental benefits for specific energy saving and RES projects by modelling different ways of setting up financial resources (subsidies, financial instruments, own funds). Last but not least, in cooperation with the MIT, we have developed a model calculation of the ex-ante evaluation of the benefits of specific objective 4.1 Support for energy efficiency measures under the upcoming Operational Programme on Technologies and Applications for Competitiveness (OPTAC).

The experience gained in the project was subsequently used in the preparation of the publication “The use of financial instruments to promote energy efficiency: an overview of support programmes in selected EU countries – examples of good practice” supported by the EFEKT programme.