The Triple-A Tools materialise the Triple-A scheme, organised according to three central pillars: Asses, Agree and Assign, making EE investments more transparent, predictable, and attractive for investors / financiers and project developers.

Triple-A Tools offer:

• Identification of attractive project ideas for bankers, funds, and other financing institutions.
• Benchmarking of the EE projects and selection of the “Triple-A” EE investments, which merit attention by the funding organisations.
• Proposal of funding strategies (Green Bonds, EE Auctions) better match the examined investments and respective beneficiaries.

In particular, within the “Assess” Tool, project ideas are checked for EU Taxonomy Guidelines compliance, and then they are evaluated according to their perceived risk profile and factors. Risk assessment is performed following the Triple-A methodology, as described in the Triple-A “Final Report on Risks of Energy Efficiency Financing and Mitigation Strategies Typology”.

The risk assessment is performed not only from the creditability point of view but also by considering all the investment characteristics. These are the country in which the project will be implemented (e.g., broader economic environment, prices volatility), the sector and project category of the investment (e.g., rebound effect, technical complexity, etc.).

In addition, other specific characteristics of the possible EE investment are considered, such as how the energy savings have been calculated, quality of equipment, the experience of the teams responsible for the implementation, etc. Considering all the above, the Triple-A Assess Tool calculates the total risk of an EE investment failing to achieve its predicted money and energy savings.

The tool developed at this step leads to a pre-screening of investment ideas at the EU level. A pipeline of at least 100 EE financially attractive projects will emerge through this step. The Triple-A Agree Tool benchmarks the predicted performance of the EE project ideas that successfully pass the Assess Tool. The benchmarking takes advantage of the various existing or new key performance indicators (KPIs), including financial indicators such as the Net Present Value, the Internal Rate of Return, the Avoidance Cost, and the Discounted Payback Period.

Besides, Risk assessment results, as well as Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) criteria to identify the potential “Triple-A investments” from the pipeline of the previous step. The benchmarking method is based on a Multicriteria Decision Making Analysis (MCDA) method that classifies alternatives into one of the following standardised categories: “Triple-A”, “Reserved”, or “Rejected”. 40-80 Triple-A investments have derived from this step.

The Triple-A Assign Tool is a multidimensional platform that aims to match benchmarked projects with financing institutions (e.g., funds, investors, banks) looking to invest in green EE projects and create a green portfolio. The Tool provides a pool of Triple-A projects and a parameterised investing portfolio to financing bodies. At the same time, project developers, ESCOs, and EE companies could be notified in case their project has been selected for financing through a specific financing scheme. Triple-A Assign Tool supports all innovative green financing schemes, such as Green Loans and Mortgages, and the issuance of green bonds, while acts as a facilitator to project aggregation, to reduce risks and foster the financing of small-scale projects. This step resulted in the elaboration of 50 project fiches.