Source: Legis-PALOP + TL
Decree-Law No. 46/2021 of 28 May, establishes the regime of Energy Services Companies (ESC), which will come into force on 26 August 2021.
Through this diploma, establishing the respective legal regime, regulating access and exercise of the activity, the conditions are created for the development, as of August 26, 2021, of a highly specialized ESC market, which can provide their services with quality, safety and efficiency.
The ESC is the company providing energy efficiency and local energy production, and the financing may be the responsibility of the ESC, the client, or both, through the use of equity and/or financing by a bank credit institution.
Private entities that want to act in the provision of energy services to final consumers, in particular energy efficiency services and local energy production services, based on Energy Performance Contracts (CDE), must comply with and fulfill the following conditions and requirements:
⦁ Obtain legal, technical and financial qualification for the exercise of the activity, which begins with registration in the Energy Services Management System (SIGSE) and ends with the issuance of the operating license;
Legal and financial requirements:
⦁ Be legally constituted on the date of registration and with a recognized legal form;
⦁ Contain explicit mention in the company’s corporate object to “provision of energy services”;
⦁ To have civil liability insurance, intended to cover the risks arising from the exercise of the respective activity, with a minimum value of 1.000.000 CVE (equivalent to approximately EUR 9.000) annually updated by direct application of the consumer price index (excluding housing);
⦁ Social security and tax situation regularized;
⦁ Ratio between equity and debt capital greater than or equal to 15%.
Technical requirements:
⦁ Have qualified personnel, being mandatory to have a professional certified in accordance with the profile of energy auditor and a professional certified with the profile of technical measurement and performance verification;
⦁ Have measuring, control and monitoring equipment to carry out an energy audit and verify the effective technical-economic performance of the implemented measures.
Activity requirements:
⦁ Reconfirm and validate the legal, technical and financial eligibility of the ESC every 3 years;
⦁ Subject the CDE to inspection;
⦁ Register the CDE on the SIGSE platform.
The CDE is the contract signed between an ESC and the final Consumer, which regulates the interaction between the parties and which establishes, among others, the technical scope of the ESC’s intervention and the expected energy benefits from the implementation of the Energy Sustainability Plan (PES) which is the intervention plan in the consumption installation, within a predetermined time frame, in which measures of energy efficiency and/or local energy production are listed and ranked according to cost/benefit criteria.
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