ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the status of the energy efficiency financing market and some innovations within it that offer the prospect for achieving that scale-up. The process of improving energy efficiency or reducing energy input for a given output is a process of technical and/or behavioural change that is driven by technological, financial, management, social and political drivers and restrained by constraints of the same type. When discussing the potential for reducing energy consumption through improved energy efficiency, it is important to distinguish between technical potential and economic potential. Property Assessed Clean Energy is a financing mechanism that enables low-cost, long-term funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy and water-conservation projects that is widely used in the USA. The EBRD was established in 1991 to finance reconstruction and development in the former Soviet Union. Bonds, particularly green bonds, have a large potential role in financing energy efficiency because energy-efficiency projects have a clear environmental benefit.
