The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has approved a loan of RSD1.2bn (€10mn) to Erste Bank Serbia for investments in energy efficiency.  

The lender will offer these funds to households for investments in energy efficiency measures, such as insulation, windows, heat pumps and solar panels.

After successfully implementing these measures, borrowers will be eligible for cashback of up to 20%, funded by the European Union (EU), announced EBRD on its website.

The financing is secured from the €135mn Green Economy Financing Facility (GEFF) programme for the Western Balkans, which supports energy efficient solutions to build a greener and more sustainable economy.

The programme is supported by the EU, the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance, and is part of the Regional Energy Efficiency Programme (REEP) for the Western Balkans.

To date, the GEFF in Serbia has reached more than 2,200 households and provided loans of more than €7.6mn for individual projects, via partner financial institutions, that have contributed to savings exceeding 5,800 MWh of energy and a reduction of over 1,700 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year. The most frequently financed technologies are windows and doors, insulation and heat pumps.

Around 7,000 households in the Western Balkans have improved their energy efficiency through the GEFF programme with investments in projects that contributed to a reduction of more than 10,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to taking 6,000 cars off the road.