The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) today announced a call for project proposals which support the development of markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. More than 3 million Euro is available for projects in developing countries.

Vienna, March 5, 2007

The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) today announced a call for project proposals which support the development of markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The project call is REEEP's largest in its four year history with more than 3 million Euro available for projects in least developed countries and emerging market economies.

The project call received funding from a consortium comprised of Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom. Norway, the new major donor to REEEP, and the United Kingdom will be pooling funds allowing for larger investments into projects. Ireland and Italy will continue their focus on Africa and New Zealand will bring small island states in the Pacific into focus.

The REEEP call is an open tender seeking projects from priority countries - China, India and Brazil and from across the developing world. Based on the experience gained over the last two years with a bottom-up approach to selecting projects, REEEP will be piloting a combination of bottom-up and top-down commissioned strategic projects.

REEEP is inviting countries with specific legislative or regulatory needs or development finance institutions with the need for financing and business models to develop a project directly with REEEP. It is hoped that by assisting governments with lowering risk within the renewables and energy efficiency sectors and working with development agencies to encourage business and financial models, finance can be attracted into new markets.

REEEP has also decided to further increase the importance of energy efficiency in its portfolio and throughout emerging markets. The project call will be seeking bidders for the production of a REEEP Report on Energy Efficiency - in order to accurately portray the benefits and role that energy efficiency can play in improving energy security, lowering carbon emissions, and enhancing industrial competitiveness covering the market, policy, stakeholders and key initiatives.

The call for project proposals will also commission work around reducing the risk of investing in renewables and energy efficiency, synthesizing REEEP experiences from its 50 previous projects and replicating successes achieved in the 18 completed projects.

Dr. Marianne Osterkorn, REEEP International Director stated that the partnership can now add value across a number of areas. "We can now fund larger and longer term projects and in addition to our bottom-up approach, the targeted approach will help to strategically accelerate key markets for renewable energy and energy efficiency."

Members & Associates can download bid documents at: http://www.reeep.org/groups/6thcallforproposals

To become an Associate, please fill-out the form at: http://www.reeep.org/trampoline/createaccountpublic2/

REEEP previously disbursed � 2.2 million euro in 2006 and � 1.1 million in 2005.