ELENA gives a boost to Vila Nova de Gaia

Vila Nova de Gaia (PT) is one of the successful applicants to benefit from the European Local ENergy Assistance (ELENA) facility, financed by the Intelligent Energy-Europe programme and managed by the European Investment Bank (EIB).

Vila Nova de Gaia’s Local Energy Agency – Energaia– has been mandated by the city to develop and implement its Sustainable Energy Action Plan, with the ambitious objective of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 25% by 2020.

In an interview available on the Covenant of Mayors website, Energaia Director, Mr. Luís Castanheira, discusses the reasons why they applied for ELENA funding and its benefits for their city.

Mr. Castanheira says “Our interest in the ELENA facility was driven by the wish to access a financial and technical support instrument enabling a strong leverage of specific projects identified within our Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP).Without this type of support, it would have proven difficult to kick-start the implementation phase, not only because of the absence of technical expertise, which ELENA will now make possible, but also because it would have deprived us from the preferential loan rates granted to ELENA applicants.”

If you wish to find more about Vila Nova de Gaia, we dedicated an article to the city in our latest Energy Cities INFO magazine (page 10).

Vila Nova de Gaia has been a member of Energy Cities since 2009.