Climate Transition - Energy Efficiency in Buildings

Within the scope of the Recovery and Resilience Program (PRR) a set of investments and reforms was defined aimed at the following areas: resilience, climate transition, and digital transition. 

The Climate Transition is a result of Portugal's commitment and contribution to the climate targets that will facilitate the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050. The decarbonization of the economy and society offers important opportunities and will prepare the country for realities that will shape competitiveness in the near future.

In this sense, we highlight "Component C13 - Energy Efficiency in Buildings", inserted in "Notice 01/C13-i03/2022", published in the context of Climate Transition.

This component aims to support the renovation and enhancement of the energy performance of service buildings, enabling a reduction in their related energy bills:

The following typologies and sub-typologies of projects to be developed in one or more buildings are covered under Notice 01/C13-i03/2022:

• Replacement of glazed areas (windows and doors) with more efficient ones;
• Interventions to incorporate bioclimatic architectural solutions, involving the installation or adaptation of fixed elements of buildings such as shading, greenhouses and roofs or green facades, favoring natural-based solutions;
• Application or replacement of thermal insulation in roofs, walls and floors, as well as the replacement of entrance doors;
• Installation of systems that promote natural ventilation of indoor air and/or natural lighting.

• Actions aimed at optimizing F-gases in existing air conditioning and/or DHW (domestic hot water) systems or their replacement with natural-based or alternative refrigerants;
• Installation or replacement of heat exchangers to take advantage of the return water temperature at hot water usage points, or equivalent systems;
• Installation or replacement of HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and/or DHW (domestic hot water) systems;
• Installation and/or improvement of thermal insulation in the production, storage and distribution systems of fluids for heating hot and cold water and/or air-conditioning with fluorinated gases 
• Full replacement of interior and exterior lighting systems;
• Implementation of systems or other solutions that contribute to the reduction of primary energy consumption in buildings, e.g. HVAC, pumping, compressed air or swimming pools (such as electronic speed variators, high-performance motors, etc.);
• Installation of energy management solutions, including centralized management systems, through monitoring and control of equipment and systems to reduce energy consumption and decrease associated costs. Incorporation of sensors (motion, presence, twilight, etc.), dimmers, etc.

• Installation of electrical energy production systems for self-consumption, through renewable sources with and without energy storage;
• Installation and/or replacement of ambient heating and/or cooling and/or hot water systems that use renewable energy, namely: Heat pumps; Solar thermal systems for hot water production; High efficiency biomass boilers and/or heat recoverers with and without hot water accumulation systems.

• Replacement of water use devices with more efficient ones, including interventions to reduce water losses;
• Installation of rainwater and/or greywater and/or water reuse systems;
• Implementation of solutions for intelligent monitoring and control of water consumption.

• Energy audits and the issuing of ex-ante and ex-post Energy Certificates in the scope of the Energy Certification System;
• Consulting/auditing of energy and/or water efficiency essential to the implementation of measures.

* Eligible expenses with immaterial actions foreseen in this intervention typology are limited to 10% of the total eligible investment.

Beneficiaries, interventions and expenses to be co-financed must respect, among others, the following general eligibility conditions:

• Beneficiaries whose buildings are covered by the Energy Certification System are eligible, with the exception of extensions that are excluded from the scope of application of this Program; 
• Equipment, solutions and installation must comply with national and community legislation and regulations in force in the respective areas and must present a better energy performance than the original solutions installed or provide an improvement in the building's overall energy performance;
• Installers and, where applicable, manufacturers of supported solutions, whether companies or individual technicians from any member state of the European Union, must have a license, certificate, declaration or other applicable document that qualifies them to perform the intervention in question and must be registered in the existing platforms for the aforementioned project types;
• After the intervention, a final energy certificate (ex-post) must be submitted to the Environmental Fund platform, which accredits the implementation of the supported typologies and supports the energy and environmental indicators collected in the phase prior to the intervention (its omission may imply the cancellation of the application and the return of the incentive granted, except in duly substantiated cases authorized by the Environmental Fund; 
• Projects must begin within 180 working days after the signature of the Terms of Acceptance between the managing entity of the Environmental Fund and the beneficiary.

• Applications are eligible if they implement interventions in one building or in multiple buildings included in the same Energy Certificate under the terms of the Notice, and if they comply with the general and specific legislation in force;
• Eligible intervention typologies must result from energy or water audits, conducted under the Building Certification System, or water audits, as applicable, conducted on the existing building(s), in the initial (ex-ante) phase, before any intervention;
• Only energy audits that support the issuing or updating of energy certificate(s) after July 1, 2021 are accepted;
• Applications that do not present an energy certificate under the conditions mentioned in the previous point, or presenting multiple energy certificates for the same building, will be excluded;
• Applications must present investments in at least one of the intervention typologies - opaque glazed envelope, technical system intervention, and energy production based on renewable energy sources for self-consumption, described above. Applications with expenses exclusively falling in the typologies water efficiency and immaterial actions will not be accepted.