De-Risking and Scaling-up Investment in Energy Efficient Building Retrofits

Improving energy efficiency (EE) in Armenia through building retrofits, addressing high levels of energy poverty and high use of imported fossil fuels for heating.

The project will build the market for EE building retrofits in Armenia, leading to sizeable energy savings and GHG emission reductions (up to 5.8 million tCO2 of direct and indirect emission savings over the 20-year equipment lifetimes), green job creation and energy poverty reduction. It will directly benefit over 200,000 people and will catalyse private and public sector investment of approximately USD 100 million.

GCF will invest a USD 14M grant to make EE loans for building retrofits more affordable. The Municipality of Yerevan will add USD 8M in co-financing. In addition, GCF will provide USD 6M in technical assistance to remove market and policy barriers to building retrofits, with UNDP providing USD 1.4M and the Ministry of Nature Protection USD 0.4M co-funding. The technical assistance will seek to overcome lack of information and awareness about the benefits of retrofitting through the establishment of measurement, reporting and verification measures, the development of policy frameworks. The cost-effective combination of policy and financial de-risking instruments and targeted financial incentives will address market barriers and achieve a risk-return profile for EE building retrofits that can attract private investments.

The project has an estimated lifespan of 20 years.