OREANDA-NEWS. March 12, 2012. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is boosting its support to Armenia to improve the country’s energy efficiency and lower energy consumption, reported the press-centre of EBRD.

As part of Armenia’s continuing move towards a low carbon economy, experts from the EBRD have helped the Armenian government develop a comprehensive action plan setting out a number of cleaner energy development measures.

Olivier Descamps, EBRD’s Managing Director for Turkey, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia together with Armen Movsissyan, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources today signed a Memorandum of Understanding on a Sustainable Energy Action Plan for Armenia (SEAP).

This initiative aims to assist Armenia in reducing the energy intensity of its economy. It also promotes energy efficiency investments in a wide range of national economy sectors, including power and energy, industry, agriculture, municipal and environmental infrastructure, property as well as the residential sector.

 “The Sustainable Energy Action Plan for Armenia will assist the Armenian government in developing necessary legislation for energy efficiency investments. This will lead to financing initiatives in support of investments in energy efficiency, renewable energy and possible carbon financing opportunities”, said Olivier Descamps.

The Sustainable Energy Action Plan, developed jointly by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the EBRD, represents an important step forward in promoting the further development of Armenia’s energy sector and securing long-term sustainable energy supplies.

The new plan focuses on the promotion of energy efficiency across industrial and residential sectors, helping Armenian companies and households to considerably reduce their energy consumption and costs. This initiative also assists Armenia to use its significant potential for the development of hydro power plants (HPPs), which remains untapped due to the constrained financial environment.

Today’s signing was possible as part of the EBRD-led policy dialogue activities across the EBRD’s countries of operations. The Bank’s sustainable energy experts closely engage with high-level national policy-makers and government officials. Together they are shaping the legal and regulatory environment to be more conducive to investments in sustainable energy. For instance, in addition to Armenia, the EBRD contributed to the adoption of national sustainable energy action plans in seven other countries, which included Bulgaria, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. In Kazakhstan, the EBRD policy dialogue activities led to the implementation of secondary legislation for renewable energy and the likely introduction of feed-in tariffs.

The EBRD is one of the largest investors in Armenia. Since the beginning of its operations in 1992, the EBRD has invested over EUR 516 million in 106 projects in the country’s financial, corporate, energy and infrastructure sectors.