The Energy Savings Certificate System (CAE) is a new opportunity to increase the return on investment while helping meet European energy efficiency targets and improving sustainability across all sectors.

 

What Is the CAE System?

A CAE is an official certificate issued and validated by public authorities that certify the annual energy savings resulting from an energy efficiency investment. 1 kWh of energy saved equals 1 CAE.

These certificates can be bought and sold, creating a secondary market that contributes to Spain’s national goal of achieving 669 Ktoe/year of final energy savings by 2030.

 

What type of actions can be justified?

In order to speed up the generation of CAE files, a catalogue has been created with common energy efficiency actions, which are called Standardized Actions.

On the other hand, all energy efficiency actions not yet catalogued, Singular Actions, can also generate CAES.

The process that will mark the validity in the generation of CAES, in addition to the final acceptance by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, will be a verification carried out through an entity accredited by ENAC.

 

Benefits of the CAE System

The CAE system was created as a new financing channel that can be a substitute or complementary to grants. Given the partial compatibility of the CAE system with public financing programs, a project may only receive grants or benefits through CAES, or it may be susceptible to being benefited by both mechanisms.

Therefore, the first step before a new energy efficiency project will be to carry out an exhaustive analysis of the optimal financing channel or channels. This analysis or technical diagnosis will seek to generate the highest possible profitability of the energy efficiency project, deducing, if possible, the combination of public incentives with CAES and, in the worst case, choosing the option that achieves the highest return while ensuring its generation potential.

By not exempting any sector, activity, or type of executor of actions, it will be possible to generate CAES and receive compensation for the savings. The CAE system is not subject to regulatory compliance in terms of grants limits according to its eligible costs, so there is no limit on the remuneration to be received by a project, regardless of the investment involved. In addition, it does not have to comply with the incentive effect or not need to comply with the law on late payment.