Kaunas District Municipality Administration in Lithuania joins the eeef Technical Assistance programme, expanding eeef’s activity to Eastern Europe

Kaunas District Municipality Administration (Lithuania) in the 4th public authority that will join the City of Gijon (Spain), the Ferrara Province (Italy) and the Italian Ministry of Defense to participate in the eeef Technical Assistance (TA) programme of the Fund, thus expanding activities of the Fund to Eastern Europe.

In the context of the eeef’s TA Facility – funded by eeef and supplemented by the European Investment Bank (‘EIB’) - European Local Energy Assistance (‘ELENA’) TA Facility under the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Union - on December 27th 2018, the eeef signed a new TA Contract with the Kaunas District Municipality Administration of the Republic of Lithuania.  The objective is to prepare and implement an ambitious street lighting upgrading investment programme, including feasibility studies, energy audits, evaluation of economic and financial viability of investments and structuring the tender documents in form of the PPP / ESCO model.

Kaunas District Municipality is one of 60 municipalities in Lithuania and surrounds the Kaunas City Municipality (the second-largest city in Lithuania). With almost 100,000 inhabitants is one of the biggest and most densely inhabited municipalities including 3 cities, 9 towns and 371 villages.

According to pre-feasibility assessment, total investment needed to implement street lighting modernization investment programme in the Kaunas District Municipality range between € 5 to 10 m depending on the programme scope chosen, including replacement with LED of approximately 10,000 luminaries. The approach of clustering cities, towns and villages in one mutual project, under the umbrella of the Kaunas District Municipality Administration, will open the way for valuable synergies and optimise the implementation rate of the investments.

eeef Technical Assistance Facility of the Fund was launched end of 2016. The objective of this facility is to support public authorities to prepare investment programmes for a sustainable transformation in the areas of energy efficiency (mainly public building renovation and street lighting upgrades) as well as self - consumption renewable energy. eeef has selected a pool of consultants to work closely with the public authorities for the TA project development services.

eeef is welcoming other European public authorities to join the eeef TA Facility, as it is available for further applications. Please visit: http://www.eeef.eu/eeef-ta-facility.html

The European Energy Efficiency Fund (eeef) S.A., SICAV-SIF is a “société d’investissement à capital variable” governed by Luxembourg law and initiated by the European Commission in cooperation with the European Investment Bank. eeef increased the initial capitalisation provided by the European Commission with contributions from the sponsors European Investment Bank, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti as well as the investment manager Deutsche Bank. eeef is an innovative public-private partnership dedicated to mitigate climate change through energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable energy in the Member States of the European Union.