On the appraisal of “Triple-A” energy efficiency investments

Abstract

Traditional investment institutions lack the technical understanding of the essence of energy efficiency investments. This often creates a lack of trust to such investments, which acts as a barrier to including energy efficiency projects in the investment portfolio, even though such investments are often robust and have a guaranteed return. Mainstreaming energy efficiency finance remains still a challenge. This paper proposes a decision support framework for identifying “Triple-A” energy efficiency investments, aiming to reduce the respective time and effort required at the early stage of the project conceptualization as well as increase transparency and efficiency of decision making. The “Triple-A” investments are the ones that successfully pass the proposed three-step approach, namely Assess–Agree–Assign. By elaborating a meta-analysis on the De-risking Energy Efficiency Platform available data, first insights from the adoption of such an approach are derived. Moreover, future directions are presented and discussed.