Regions4GreenGrowth provides recommendations on how to boost investments in RES & EE.

“The European Union (EU) aims to get 20% of its energy from renewable sources (RES) by 2020, as well as to cut 20% of Europe’s annual primary energy consumption” (Source: EC website.).

The stakes are high, but unfortunately, the fact is that public and private stakeholders willing to invest in sustainable energy hardware and infrastructure often have difficulties attracting financial means to support their investments. The private financial sector is often hesitant to invest in sustainable energy and while public funding is an alternative or complementary source for these investments, the volume of national financial support schemes in most EU countries is limited and difficult to acquire. As such, Regions with the ambition to be leaders in sustainable energy must therefore create innovative instruments and facilities to generate these financial flows and investments in their territory.

This is the challenge that the Regions4GreenGrowth (R4GG) INTERREG IVC project has tackled over the last 36 months. The exchange of good practices and the transfer of proven models to boost and channel investment were an essential part of the project. Moreover, R4GG applied AER’s Peer Review methodology that involves several partners visiting a partner region to provide concrete recommendations on policy improvement.