Triple-A : “Enhancing at an Early Stage the Investment Value Chain of Energy Efficiency Projects”  is a project with a practical result-oriented approach. It seeks to identify which energy efficiency investments can be considered Triple-A investments by fostering sustainable growth, while also having an extremely strong capacity to meet their commitments. It does so already from the first stages of investments generation and preselection/ pre-evaluation.

Triple-A aims to identify and mainstream energy efficiency investments focusing on the pre-screening process, whereas yet no standardization procedures exist. The project thus will support the identification of attractive project ideas and create standardised tools and benchmarks.
The ‘gap’ that the Triple-A scheme tries to cover lays in the development phase of energy efficiency investments, where plenty of project ideas exist. These projects, however, tend to never get financed for various reasons, either because project developers do not have the expertise or resources to make a convincing financing case for investors or because most of the banking sector does not adopt energy-efficiency-based criteria for financing the most attractive projects.

Triple-A, therefore, adopted a very practical result-oriented approach, seeking to address this challenge by answering the following questions:
• How to assess the financing instruments and risks at an early stage?
• How to agree on the Triple-A investments, based on selected key performance indicators?
• How to assign the identified investment ideas with possible financing schemes?

The Triple-A scheme is comprised of three steps, – Assess – Agree – Assign –, answering each of the abovementioned questions, with the following main outputs:

• Step 1 – Assess will result in Member States risk profiles and Mitigation Policies, including a Web-based database that will enable comparability per Member State and sector, identification of market maturity, exchange of experiences regarding good practices among the Member States (MS), and facilitation of the replicability, leading to fruitful policy analysis for scaling-up energy efficiency investments and reducing uncertainty for investors / financiers.
• Step 2 – Agree will result in Standardised Triple-A Tools and Benchmarks, including standardised tools, efficient benchmarks, guidelines translated in all languages of the consortium partners, templates and procedures, accelerating and scaling up private Triple-A investments in energy efficiency.
• Step 3 – Assign will result in In-country Demonstrations, Replicability, and Overall Exploitation, including recommendations on what energy efficiency investments are realistic and feasible in the national and sectoral context, as well as on how they could be financed in practice in the short or medium term. In-country demonstrations of the investments, through the standardised Triple-A tools, are envisaged.

Draft versions of the Triple-A Tools are available online (https://toolbox.aaa-h2020.eu/). The Tools are designed for project developers, bankers and financers, enabling them to check the European Union Taxonomy compliance, assess the total risk and benchmark the estimated performance of their energy efficiency projects. The Tools could be used not only to benchmark projects, but also to receive a suggested portfolio of already benchmarked Triple-A projects, parameterised to each user’s needs. In addition to the Triple-A Tools, the Triple-A Interactive Web-based Database (https://aaa-h2020.eu/database) is available, providing interactive maps & graphs that display the results of the Triple-A risks assessment on energy efficiency investments.
Triple-A investments will be identified in the following eight case study countries: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Spain and the Netherlands.

The main objective of this questionnaire is to receive feedback from stakeholders on the risks of energy efficiency financing and energy efficiency project evaluation criteria. The questions included in the next pages pertain to the evaluation of risk factors and risk categories that project developers, investors and bankers come across when planning, financing, and developing energy efficiency projects. In addition, questions regarding the evaluation of project fiches and the importance of the various indicators that are broadly used, are covered.  

Confidentiality
Any data and information given in this questionnaire will be treated strictly confidential and will not be transferred to any third parties. Participants interested in getting actively engaged in the Triple-A project are encouraged to fill in their contact details at the end of this questionnaire.

Acknowledgments
The Triple-A project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 846569.