Internal Contracting

Public sector (public buildings, equipment and facilities)

In a nutshell

Set up by the city of Stuttgart (Germany) in 1995, this financing scheme has already allowed the municipality to implement over 350 energy efficiency measures in public buildings, equipment and facilities generating financial savings of EUR 22 million.

The idea of Internal Contracting (also called Intracting) is to enable the municipality to finance multiple investments aimed at energy savings without being bound to an external contractor. Internal Contracting is based on the following process: a technical department or a municipally-owned company (‘the client’) submits an energy-saving project.

The project and its energy-saving potential are examined by the energy department. If the payback period proves acceptable and the project costeffective, an agreement is signed between the two departments. The ’client’ department starts repaying the investment the following year. These repayments are then used to finance other projects.

Tested and approved

4 European cities of all sizes and 4 French universities have replicated this financing scheme: Agueda (Portugal), Almada (Portugal), Koprivnica (Croatia), Udine (Italy), the Universities of Rennes, Clermont-Ferrand, Nanterre and Reims.

Step-by-step Guidebook

Infinite Solutions Guidebook - Financing the energy renovation of public buildings through Internal Contracting This guidebook is built upon a comprehensive analysis of Stuttgart’s Internal Contracting scheme and a detailed questioning of it by the learning authorities within the Infinite Solutions project. It is intended to offer guidelines to municipalities as well as universities, hospitals or other institutions interested in applying Internal Contracting to improve their energy consumption and efficiency performance. Download: PDF - 20.6 Mb

Useful materials

• Intracting - one pager info sheet

• Stuttgart’s presentation on intracting scheme (in English)

• Energy Cities’ study on intracting: this study contains a detailed description and principles of intracting finanicng scheme, Stuttgart experience with intracting and other cities’ and French universities’ experiences with intracting
  in English
  en français