eeef completed financing of the technical assistance for the City of Santander in a preparation of the pioneer PPP contract for the street lighting upgrade in Spain
In December 2012, the eeef signed its first Technical Assistance contract with the City Council of Santander for over €450K to conduct feasibility studies to review energy performance of the current public infrastructure and to elaborate a plan to improve the energy efficiency of the City. The scope of work included the completion of energy audits within 65 municipal buildings and of 22,700 street lighting points.
Based on the results of the energy audits, the City Council has taken decision to renovate the street lighting infrastructure and published a call for tender to select a private company to upgrade and maintain it. According to the PPP contract, the selected energy service company is required to invest €11m to upgrade over 20,000 lighting points in Santander. The project will include the:
- Upgrade of current lamps to cutting edge LED lighting technology,
- Inclusion of point-to-point remote management,
- Installation of 60 motion lighting sensors, to ensure illumination intensity regulation.
Once the project is implemented, the City expects to save more than 4,000 tCO2e per year in comparison to baseline estimations of 2,400 tCO2e per year outlined in the Technical Assistance application.
In December 2015, the City received ten bids from private bidders to complete the upgrade works operation and maintenance services for a 15 year period of a total value around €45m. The contract was awarded to Elecnor, which has one year to complete the renovation work. With this PPP contract, no additional budgetary constraints will arise to the City.
Considering its previous involvement, eeef has been referred by the City Council of Santander to act as preferred financing entity for the investments required in the PPP contract. Santander is the capital city of the Cantabria region on Spain’s north coast with a population of around 180,000 citizens. Santander is a Member of RECI, the Spanish Network of Smart Cities and is recognized as a role model for Smart Cities in Europe for implementing state-of-the-art technology to improve the public services.
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.
The European Energy Efficiency Fund aims to support the goals of the European Union to promote a sustainable energy market and climate protection. eeef pursues environmental goals by offering funding for energy efficiency and small scale renewable energy projects to public authorities, European municipalities and regions, private sector acting on behalf of the public bodies.