A recent CITYnvest workshop in Riga, Latvia, showed local authorities how to use innovative financial instruments for retrofitting projects.

A Horizon 2020 project, CITYnvest aims to help local leaders identify and implement energy and finance solutions in their sustainable energy action plans (SEAPs).

The Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments’ Andra Feldmane invited local authorities to develop a common platform for energy efficiency investments, offering her support in facilitating its establishment and attracting funding from other EU financial instruments such as the Juncker Plan.

Latvian municipalities face challenges in investing in renovation due to budget restrictions. This renders them reliant on EU funding for retrofitting projects.

Experts at the workshop emphasised the interest, and the potential, in Latvia to retrofit multi-apartment dwellings. These projects require significant financing and an agreement between the majority of apartment-owners. In order to realise this potential, however, CITYnvest expert Jean-Francois Marchand suggested Latvian local authorities and stakeholders should learn from other EU models such as France’s Energies POSIT’IF, which raised a capital of over €5m in its first year.

The Horizon 2020-funded Sunshine project, presented as an additional replicable solution, uses energy performance contracting to renovate Soviet-era buildings in Latvia.

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