The European Investment Bank (EIB) is lending EUR 125 million to finance the energy efficiency refurbishments of 365 multi-storey residential buildings in the Sector 1 Municipality of the Romanian capital, Bucharest.The reduction of atmospheric pollution, particularly CO2 emissions, through energy savings in the refurbished buildings, will help mitigate climate change.
The EIB loan will finance up to 75% of the programme’s investment cost covering thermal rehabilitation, including the thermal insulation of walls, windows, roofs and cellars of multi-family residential buildings with some 20 000 apartments. The additional funding to complete this multi-annual programme will be covered from the Municipality’s own funds. This refurbishment will be carried out until 2014. The promoter of this project is the Municipality of Sector 1 Bucharest and the final beneficiaries are the residents of Bucharest. Apart from increasing the quality of life of Bucharest residents through energy savings, the project will also help improve the image of the buildings under this programme. The project will help Romania to meet its commitments related to improving energy efficiency, particularly to reach the EU 2020 target. The project is expected to reduce the buildings’ energy consumption by around 50% and the total energy saved will amount to approximately 190 GWh per year once the programme is fully implemented.This is the second EIB loan provided directly to a Sector Municipality in Bucharest. In December 2010 the Bank signed a finance contract of EUR 70 million with the Municipality of Sector 6 Bucharest to implement a similar thermal rehabilitation project and other similar projects are in the pipeline.
