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The $450 million Building Energy Efficiency Funding Schemes were formally launched today (April 8) with funding from the Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF).
Officiating at the launching ceremony, the ECF Committee Chairman Professor David Lung said,¡§The funding schemes will encourage building owners to take concrete action for enhancing the energy efficiency performance of buildings.¡¨
The funding schemes provide subsidies to incentivise building owners to conduct energy-cum-carbon audits and energy efficiency projects for their buildings.
¡§We expect that more than 1,600 projects will be subsidised. This will also create business and job opportunities for various sectors such as the electrical, mechanical, building services and environmental engineering sectors,¡¨ Professor Lung said.
Energy-cum-carbon audits can help building owners to systematically review the use of energy and quantify the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their buildings, as well as to identify opportunities for the enhancement of energy efficiency and conservation and reductions in GHG emissions arising from building operations. Financial incentives will also be provided to encourage building owners to carry out alteration, addition or improvement works to upgrade the energy efficiency performance of their building services installations.
Subsidies will be provided on a matching basis. For applications involving a single building, the funding caps will be $150,000 and $500,000 per building for energy-cum-carbon audits and energy efficiency projects respectively. For applications involving more than one building, a limit of 50% of the approved total actual expenditure spent will be provided without a maximum cap.
Professor Lung said that as buildings accounted for almost 90% of the electricity consumption in Hong Kong, improving their energy efficiency would be instrumental in bringing down GHG emissions.
The Government announced in last year¡¦s Policy Address the plan to set up the funding schemes, as a major initiative for building a low carbon economy.
Building owners interested in the funding schemes can obtain more information from www.building-energy-funds.gov.hk .
Ends/Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:22
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