Challenges for Public-Private Partnership in improving energy efficiency of building sector

The provision of private capitals to build and operate of works bringing benefit to the
community received a major boost during the last three decades, by the spread of public
private partnership schemes all over Europe. Both project financing (contractual PPP)
and public-private partnerships with shared capital (PPPI) were mainly used to build
infrastructures able to generate income through revenues from users, recovering by this
means at least a share of the investment costs. Some changes that have occurred over
the last five years make it difficult in the near future the implementation of the cooperation
models used in the past. The economic and financial crisis has dramatically
worsened the supply of capital necessary to complete the projects, while the needs to
which the public administrations are facing are rapidly changing. Over the most tried
and tested field of big infrastructure and urban facilities, new priorities are emerging,
such as the refurbishment of social housing stock and the supply of new homes at
affordable prices or rents for low income households, as well as the rehabilitation of
public school buildings. As for environmental reasons, the achievement of high
standards of energy efficiency is also an important variable for the feasibility of PPP
scheme, in particular in retrofit and refurbishment of existing buildings. A reliable
prediction of the achievable energy efficiency levels and their impact on operating costs
of the buildings affects the structuring of public private partnership, and in some cases
it may represent a main driver of its economic and financial sustainability. In this
context, significant benefits can be derived from the use of several tools - mandatory,
incentive, voluntary – made available to support energy efficiency by different levels
of regulations - European, national, local. This paper investigates innovative business
models for energy retrofitting actions and several available tools to subsidize their
adoption. The paper comprises a case study selection, based on a detailed analysis of
eco-innovations collected in Italy, and a focus on a significant case.