ESCO in Germany

Germany is the most mature ESCO market in the EU. The German ESCO market is characterised by more than 70,000 contracts for energy services19 concluded by the end of 2000, which resulted in a total investment exceeding 5 billion Euro, more than 50,000 generation units, a total installed thermal capacity of 46 GW and a total installed electric capacity of 8 GW (Brand and Geissler 2003). More than 200 EPC agreements have been made since the mid-1990s, primarily for public buildings in the commercial sector with building “pools” of up to 100 separate buildings20 (Seefeldt 2003). In the City of Berlin alone more than 900 public buildings have been upgraded since the start of the Energy Saving Partnership program in 1995; these have been grouped in 16 pools. The total guaranteed savings is above 7.8 million Euro and the total investment is around 32 million Euro (Seefeldt 2005). Other large EPC projects have been realised in Hamburg, Munich, Leipzig, Bremen, the region of Hesse and in some cities in North-Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony-Anhalt. The provision of energy services like energy management and accounting, heat supply have been common for private buildings as well (EnergyProNet n.d.).