European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Union honored 15 Romanian companies for promoting energy efficiency, reads EBRD’s press release.
The EU-EBRD Sustainable Energy Excellence Awards, held in Bucharest on March 19, recognized Romania’s most successful sustainable energy projects financed by the EBRD and the EU. “We are celebrating Romanian companies which have demonstrated time and again that investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy can bring economic, environmental, energy security and social benefits to Romania,” said James Hyslop, EBRD Director for Romania.
“Economic benefits arrive in the form of lower utility costs for investors; environmental benefits in the form of lower CO2 emissions; security of energy supply through lower energy demand, or by meeting demand with local renewable energy resources; and social benefits in the form of jobs in the growing sustainable energy sector,” he added.
To promote sustainable energy in the private sector, the EBRD and the EU have teamed up with Romanian banks to provide finance and advice to companies investing in energy efficiency and small-scale renewable-energy projects.
Banca Comercială Română (BCR), BRD Groupe Société Générale, Banca Transilvania, CEC Bank, OTP Bank, Raiffeisen Bank and UniCredit Ţiriac Bank have all been part of the EBRD and EU’s joint programmes financing sustainable energy in Romania. Finance for energy efficiency in the private sector is currently available at Banca Comercială Română (BCR), BRD Groupe Société Générale, Banca Transilvania and UniCredit Ţiriac Bank under the EU-EBRD Romania SME Sustainable Energy Finance Facility (RoSEFF), a key instrument for promoting the efficient use of energy to cut bills and boost the competitiveness of SMEs.
So far, banks have on-lent EUR 112 million of EBRD finance to almost 300 companies for financing energy efficiency improvements with a combined value of EUR 156 million. The finance is supported by technical advice and financial incentives for SMEs funded with an EU grant.
These projects led to annual energy and CO2 savings of 1,786 GWh, the equivalent of the household electricity consumption of the city of Bucharest for an entire year, or 394 thousand tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of taking 123,690 passenger cars off the roads for a year.
The winners of the EU-EBRD Sustainable Energy Excellence Awards 2015 are: Comcereal SA, Alex Star SRL, Agropan Impex, STC Invest SRL, Auto Europa SA, Electroargeş SA, Corom Export SRL, SC Norada SA, Diaplast Production SRL, Luxten Lighting SA and the City of Bucharest, Palrom Products SRL, Welthaus SRL, Spicul Turcin, OMV Petrom Marketing SA and Romwelle PM SA.
