Taken from: Inovativnost.mk
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) officially presented the GEFF Program for Energy Efficiency Financing, which will provide funding for improving energy efficiency in households.
Ohridska banka Societe Generale and Sparkasse Banka signed an agreement with the EBRD and became the first local banks to place credit lines in the total amount of 4 million euros, intended for further crediting of energy efficient projects in the households. An additional 4m euros are planned to be disbursed through other local banks. These investments will help households to increase the level of energy efficiency, reduce emissions and improve their living standard.
Inovativnost (portal) talked with Igor Pancevski, technical expert for North Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania to explain what this Program covers.
The GEFF program in North Macedonia will support all households with a grant component of up to 20% of the value of the loan that will invest in:
In what do the households need to pay attention before they enter the investment so they can take the opportunity to receive a grant?
All those who decide to invest and become part of the program should check several things beforehand. Namely, the program includes 11 technologies and over 3,000 products that are highly efficient. All products were subject to prior verification where they had to fulfill the specified technical criteria set by the EBRD (given on the following link https://ebrdgeff.com/macedonia/mk/the-programme/technical-eligibility-criteria
These products have been carefully selected and with the help of the companies that sell them in North Macedonia, they are entered into the Technology Selector, which is an online product catalog (link: www.ebrdgeff.com/macedonia/ts)
Any interested individual before investing needs to check whether the product in which he wants to invest has been previously approved by the program and whether it exists in the selector of technologies. If the product exists, it can check which firms sell it and obtain a pro-invoice from them. A pro-invoice for the product can also be obtained from a company that is not displayed on the website. Then the pro-invoice goes to one of the two banks, program partners and applies for the GEFF credit line.
If the bank approves the loan to the client, then the implementation of the measure i.e. installation of the product. When the installation of the measure is completed, the client notifies the bank, and the GEFF team will verify the costs and the installed equipment. After successful confirmation, a grant calculation is made and it is transferred to the transaction account of the developer.
Apart from the product itself, the eligible costs for the program are defined as the so-called. eligible auxiliary costs such as: installation costs, auxiliary materials and labor. These costs have already been defined as a percentage of the main product being procured.
For more accessible information, all interested people can contact the banks, the companies part of the program or our e-mail mk@ebrdgeff.com or on our Viber number +389 77 866 231
Why should households invest in energy efficiency? What are the key benefits?
Energy efficiency measures should be applied to any family that has the opportunity. There are many benefits of these measures, but we could roughly divide them into two groups: