Alentejo Central as a first Portuguese authority to co-operate with eeef on Technical Assistance for energy efficiency upgrades of 14 municipalities

Évora – The Comunidade Intermunicipal do Alentejo Central (CIMAC), representing 14 municipalities (in particular Évora, Alandroal, Arraiolos, Borba, Estremoz, Monte-mor-o-Novo, Mora, Mourão, Portel, Redondo, Reguengos Monsaraz, Vendas-Novas, Viana do Alentejo and Vila Viçosa) is cooperating with eeef and will receive Technical Assistance funds to cut environmental pollution in their territories. These municipalities have recognized the importance of energy efficiency as an important tool to reduce operational costs, and at the same time to contribute positively to their economy and environment by creating new jobs. The special feature of this initiative is pooling smaller projects in a bigger scheme. 

This Technical Assistance programme aims at developing the launch of building retrofit projects through energy performance contracts (EPC), a public vehicle replacement scheme for hybrid cars as well as micro renewable energy plants and the upgrade of street lighting systems owned by the municipalities. CIMAC plans to invest EUR12m envisaging primary energy savings of around 35% and a reduction in CO2 emissions by 6,500 tons per annum.

Around 71 public buildings have already been identified for retrofit projects based on their age, high occupancy rates as well as their electrical and thermal consumption. CIMAC further aims to upgrade parts of the municipal lighting networks, with around 36.000 lighting points in total, as well as to replace 43 public vehicles by hybrid cars with the purpose of reducing the current CO2 emissions and being an example for citi-zen awareness.

The European Energy Efficiency Fund (eeef) S.A., SICAV-SIF is a “société d’investissement à capital variable” governed by Luxembourg law and was initiated by the European Commission in cooperation with the European Investment Bank. The initial capitalization provided by the European Commission was increased with contributions from the sponsors European Investment Bank, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti as well as the Investment manager Deutsche Bank.