European City Facility: Supporting Cities to develop investment plans for the Clean Energy Transition

The ‘European City Facility’ shall be run under the LIFE CET programme. This facility should build on the experiences of the current European City Facility (EUCF) and envisage an appropriate follow-up and scaling up of its fundamental approach.

Scope

• Proposals should take into account the experience of the ongoing EUCF in addressing the above issues and envisage an appropriate follow-up and scaling up of its fundamental approach.
• In this context, proposals are expected to run a ‘European City Facility’ which offers financial support and related services to European cities, municipalities or their groupings to develop investment concepts for energy efficiency and integrated energy transition investments combining energy efficiency and renewables.
• These concepts should be developed within a limited period of time and cover, among the others, 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 particular:
  • proposals are expected to deliver financial support to third parties, in the form of lump sum grants to cities, municipalities or their groupings.
  • in accordance with the general call conditions on financial support to third parties, applicants should 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.
  • applicants 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 considering, among other things, 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 offer services at the national level to support cities and municipalities in call applications, investment concept development, identification of financing streams and investment implementation processes.
  • the European City Facility should also implement appropriate capacity building schemes, in particular to help beneficiaries of the lump sum grants to use the financial support in the most effective manner and guide them in the post investment concept phase.
  • additionally, the European City Facility should offer opportunities for exchange of best practices among cities and municipalities, including at national level, with a view to remove existing barriers and enable the uptake and efficient operationalisation of the investment concepts.
  • furthermore, the European City Facility should establish an appropriate framework for comprehensive monitoring, analysis, capitalisation, communication and dissemination of results and success stories, notably the monitoring of the investment potential represented by the investment concepts, as well as the investment volumes secured and actually implemented after the end of the lump sum grant.
• Applicants should be deeply rooted in municipal sustainable energy/climate planning and financial engineering of energy efficiency investments and integrated energy transition investments combining energy efficiency and renewables.
• Applicants should also demonstrate a deep understanding of the strategic nature of this initiative, including the different challenges for upscaling finance and, in particular, for mobilising private financing sources.
• In addition, applicants should also demonstrate that they are able to mobilise 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 estimated available call budget is EUR 91,400,000.
• Grant amount: EUR 15,000,000.

Expected Outcomes

• Proposals should present the concrete results which will be delivered by the activities and demonstrate how these results will contribute to the topic-specific impacts.
• This demonstration should include a detailed analysis of the starting point and a set of well-substantiated assumptions and establish clear causality links between the results and the expected impacts.
• Proposals should demonstrate how they will contribute to the follow-up and scaling up of the fundamental approach of the current European City Facility.
• Proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities.
• The indicators for this topic include:
  • Number of investment concepts delivered, and in particular number of investment concepts delivered to implement local heating and cooling plans.
  • Number of investment concepts transformed into ambitious tangible investments as a result of the action.
  • Number of public authority staff with increased capacity for developing investment concepts for energy efficiency, and integrated energy transition investments combining energy efficiency and renewables.
• Proposals should also quantify their impacts related to the following common indicators for the LIFE Clean Energy Transition sub-programme:
  • Investments in sustainable energy (energy efficiency and small-scale renewables) triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).
  • Primary energy savings triggered by the project (GWh/year).
  • Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (GWh/year).
  • 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, i.e.:
    • EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
    • non-EU countries:
      • listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme
  • the coordinator must be established in an eligible country.

For more information, visit European Commission.