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The EBRD is enhancing its support for energy efficiency in Bulgaria with new funds to help households cut their carbon footprint.
The EBRD is lending €3.5 million to ProCredit Bank Bulgaria to help the bank finance private individuals’ efforts to reduce energy waste and costs.
The proceeds of the loan, extended under the Bank’s Residential Efficiency Credit Line Framework, will be used to provide individuals in Bulgaria with credits for interior and exterior insulation of their homes, biomass stoves and boilers, solar water heaters, efficient gas boilers and heat pumps.
This project will build on the successful implementation of an original €10 million Residential Energy Efficiency Credit Line, which was provided to ProCredit Bank Bulgaria in 2006 and has been fully disbursed.
Similar to the first credit line provided by the EBRD, sub-borrowers undertaking energy efficiency investments will be reimbursed up to 20% of the projects’ costs upon the completion of the works. Grant funds from the Kozloduy International Decommissioning Support Fund will be used to finance these incentives.
“Improving energy efficiency is a key element in Bulgaria’s energy policy, and the EBRD is pleased to support the country’s efforts to comply with the EU standards in this field. The extension of the loan to ProCredit Bank will enable more families to improve their homes and reduce energy wastage,” said James Hyslop of the EBRD.
“The extension of the loan agreement is for a period of five years with 2 years grace period. By resuming the granting of energy efficiency loans our bank is trying once again to satisfy the households’ needs of resources for urgent building repairs and purchase of energy efficient heating technology,” added Petar Slavov from ProCredit Bank.
Established in 2001 by a group of international financial institutions, including the EBRD, ProCredit Bulgaria is one of the leading lenders to small businesses in Bulgaria.
The Residential Energy Efficiency Framework was launched in 2005 to address household energy waste in Bulgaria, using the retail lending.
To date the EBRD has invested €42.6 million under this framework, financing over 25,500 energy efficiency home improvement projects. Overall these projects have helped save a total estimated energy equivalent of over 192,000 MWh per year, and reduce CO2 emissions by 275,310 tonnes per year.
Overall since the beginning of its operations in Bulgaria, the Bank has committed over €1.8 billion in more than 120 projects in the financial services, corporate, infrastructure and energy sectors.