Public-private partnership for a large scale building retrofit programme

Ljubljana is working with two private companies to realise Slovenia’s largest ever energy retrofit contracting project, an investment of €14.9 million for the retrofit of 48 buildings. The interventions pay themselves off over fifteen years, and then begin to generate a profit.

Many of the 48 buildings that have been retrofitted are city-owned and include sports facilities, schools, kindergartens, administrative buildings, libraries and health centres. The energy-saving interven-tions included replacing standard lighting with LEDs, modernising the heating and air-conditioning systems (which get a lot of use during cold winters and hot summers), insulating the walls and roofs and, where possible, switching energy sources from fossil fuels to sus-tainable energy sources. Buildings are directly connected with the private partner’s surveillance centre (at Petrol), which enables an immediate response to any malfunctioning of built-in equipment, with the response time depending on the kind of fault detected.

The private companies Petrol and Resalta will maintain all of the upgrades for fifteen years. These companies together provided 51% of the funding for the interventions, while the remaining 49% was funded by the city of Ljubljana budget, and partly by EU Cohesion funds (only for the completely retrofitted buildings). For 15 years, the city will use the financial savings from reduced energy use to repay the companies for their work and investment.

The interventions in the 48 buildings are expected to save 8,245,534 kWh of energy, and 2,956 tonnes of CO2 annually. These environ-mental saving also come with a financial reward: After 15 years the initial €14.9 million investment will be paid back, and then the city can help itself to all of the profits.

Case study developed by the Covenant of Mayors – Europe Office.