Facilitate the meeting between supply and demand in the design and implementation of complex energy efficiency interventions, with the possibility of choosing the operator who provides the “turnkey” service without anticipating costs.
This is the objective of the ESCo Showcase, the new portal activated by the GSE which allows citizens, condominiums, businesses and public administrations to identify qualified companies active in their territory. The platform allows you to geographically search the registered ESCos and view the contacts, the services offered and the main interventions carried out, so as to be able to choose the entity best suited to your needs.
>> Are you interested in articles like this? Receive them directly
Only companies with the sticker
ESCos (Energy Service Companies) are companies that offer integrated services aimed at improving the energy efficiency of a building or industrial plant, ensuring continuous monitoring and taking care of maintenance for the entire duration of the contract, contractually assuming the burden of verifying the actual savings achieved compared to the starting situation.
For this reason, in order to be qualified as an ESCo, companies must be in possession of UNI CEI 11352 certification, the standard that implements European requirements and establishes the minimum capabilities that an ESCo must demonstrate by law to a third-party certification body. To obtain and maintain the “stamp”, the company must prove that it possesses the technical and organizational skills to provide compliant energy diagnoses, define contractual savings guarantees and conduct periodic consumption measurement activities through standardized protocols and tools.
Contracts and coverage
The standard contracts used on the market (generally called EPC – Energy Performance Contract) provide that the fee due is partially or totally linked to the level of energy improvement established in the project phase. In practice, for the entire duration of the contract, the ESCo remains linked to the property, assuming the legal and technical responsibility for maintaining the performance estimated in the project phase, guaranteeing the client against drops in performance or structural failures.
The mechanism is based on the principle of shared savings:
- The ESCo finances or co-finances the intervention, eliminating or drastically reducing the initial financial outlay borne by the customer.
- The economic savings generated compared to the historical situation are contractually divided between the ESCo and the client for the entire duration of the relationship.
The private individual thus obtains an immediate economic benefit (a reduction in overall energy expenditure) and the total redevelopment of the property, agreeing to share a portion of the future profit with the ESCo as a return on the capital invested by the operator. At the end of the contract, the system and 100% of the energy savings definitively pass into the hands of the owner.
Guaranteed interventions
For the private or condominium customer, the intervention through ESCo is divided into three levels of specialist support:
- Preliminary phase: the operator carries out the Energy Diagnosis of the property, an essential technical analysis to map energy flows and scientifically quantify where waste is concentrated.
- Implementation and bureaucratic phase: the company can operate with “turnkey” formulas, managing the municipal authorization process, executive planning and plant installation. In this phase, it takes care of the drafting and sending of the procedures for accessing incentives such as the GSE Thermal Account.
- Post-intervention phase: once the construction site is closed, the ESCo remains linked to the property to monitor the efficiency results achieved.
The duration of the contract normally extends over a period of time ranging on average between 5 and 10 years.
When you need an ESCo
In the residential and tertiary construction market, the intervention of an ESCo finds its maximum effectiveness in condominium contexts or in large-scale structural redevelopments (e.g. integrated thermal insulation, complex thermal power plants, cogeneration systems or widespread self-consumption configurations).
In these scenarios, the ESCo intervenes as a single entity capable of guaranteeing not only the correct execution of the works, but also the economic sustainability of the entire project through dedicated contractual instruments.
Another key element for large real estate complexes is ongoing assistance. Since the ESCo’s profit directly depends on the real energy savings measured, the ESCo provides a complete service for monitoring consumption and verifying efficiency results. This means that ordinary maintenance, remote management of systems and optimization of energy flows remain the responsibility of certified specialists, relieving condominium administrators and owners from the daily management of technical critical issues.
Services provided by ESCos, table
Here is the outline of the specific services provided by an ESCo, starting from the client’s needs:
|
What does the client need? |
What the company does operationally |
Technical objective of the service |
|---|---|---|
|
Understand where energy is wasted |
Conducts the Energy Diagnosis of the building and analyzes the historical consumption of the bills. |
Identify structural waste before starting works. |
|
A single point of contact for the works |
It offers the “Turnkey” service: it takes care of design, building practices, installation and testing. |
Coordinate the various workers on site under a single technical direction. |
|
Monetize incentives immediately |
Manages requests for Thermal Accounts or White Certificates and takes care of the procedures with the GSE. |
Optimize the obtaining of contributions by reducing the margins of formal error. |
|
Protect yourself from faulty systems |
Install continuous consumption monitoring systems and verify the results over time. |
Obtain scientific verification that the estimated savings are real. |
|
Share the energy produced |
Develops and configures widespread self-consumption and Renewable Energy Community (CER) systems. |
Promote the sharing of self-produced energy at local or condominium level. |
>> If you want to receive news like this directly on your smartphone, subscribe to our new Telegram channel!
Thank you for subscribing to the newsletter.
