Deadline: 3-Mar-22
Proposals are invited to run a ‘European City Facility’ under LIFE which offers financial support and services to cities and municipalities or their groupings:
- The European City Facility should offer financial support to European cities and municipalities to develop investment concepts for sustainable energy investments, with a dedicated focus on energy efficiency. These concepts should be developed within a limited period of time and cover, inter-alia: a clear identification of the potential project pipeline, a legal analysis, a governance analysis, a description of how the investments will be financed and a design of the process to launch the investments. In this context:
- Proposals are expected to foresee financial support to third parties, in the form of grants including ‘lump sums’ (‘financial support scheme’), and around 70-75% of the budget should directly benefit cities, municipalities or their groupings in this context.
- In accordance with the general call conditions on financial support to third parties, applicants should in particular also clearly specify why financial support to third parties is needed and how it will be managed, and provide a list of the different types of activities for which a third party may receive financial support. The process and criteria for allocation of financial support to third parties need to conform to EU standards concerning transparency, equal treatment, conflict of interest and confidentiality. The proposal must also clearly describe the results to be obtained.
- Proposers should demonstrate the capacity to run a financial support scheme at large scale in accordance with LIFE CET standards and that they are able to select the most cost-efficient and appropriate applications taking into account, inter alia, the scale of the potential investment and energy savings, as well as the number of inhabitants covered in the specific context targeted.
- The European City Facility should additionally offer services at the national / regional level to support cities and municipalities in the application, investment concept development and investment implementation processes.
- The European City Facility should furthermore consider appropriate replication measures and exchange of best practices among cities and municipalities, in particular also with a view to enabling the uptake and efficient operationalization of the fundamental approaches of its scheme at the national / regional level.
- In this context, the European City Facility should establish an appropriate framework for comprehensive monitoring, analysis and capitalization of results, notably the leverage factor achieved by the EUCF financial support with regard to envisioned investment concepts and related source (s) of funding.
Proposers should be deeply rooted in municipal sustainable energy / climate planning and financial engineering of sustainable energy and, in particular, energy efficiency investments.
Proposers should demonstrate a deep understanding of the strategic nature of this initiative, as regards, inter alia, the different challenges for upscaling finance for sustainable energy investments and, in particular, for mobilising private financing sources.
Proposers should also demonstrate that they are able to mobilize a critical mass of cities / municipalities or their groupings and have a sound and inclusive outreach strategy to cities and municipalities across Europe.
Funding Information
The available call budget is EUR 16,000,000
Expected Impact
Proposals are expected to demonstrate the impacts listed below, using quantified indicators and targets, wherever possible:
- Increased, well-demonstrated and documented, leveraging of (private) finance into sustainable energy and, in particular, energy efficiency investments by public authorities
- Number of investment concepts delivered and number of investment concepts transformed into ambitious tangible as a result of the action
- Investments in sustainable energy triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro)
- Primary energy savings / Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (GWh / year)
- Number of public authority staff with increased capacity for developing investible sustainable energy and, in particular, energy efficiency projects
- Uptake by potential replicators on the national / regional level
- Reduction of greenhouse gases emissions (in tCO2-eq / year)
Eligibility Criteria
In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:
- be legal entities (public or private bodies)
- be established in one of the eligible countries, ie:
- EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
- non-EU countries:
- listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Program (associated countries) or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature
- the coordinator must be established in an EU Member State
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/3DkBFeM
