3FOOD

Third Industrial Revolution Consulting Group
1.2.1.3 A Flexible Investment Model that can be replicated to fit Luxembourg’s Context-Specific
Requirements
The SEF investment model has received endorsements from the White House 236 and the Asian
Development Bank. 237 The SEF investment model was further recently highlighted by the
International Energy Agency (IEA) as being a model capable of driving urban energy
transformation. In terms of its application to other contexts, the SEF investment model and the
SEU authority model have diffused across the United States and globally. 238 SEF models are now
active in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and California. Seoul Metropolitan Government is
actively considering implementation of the application.
An example of SEF diffusion and context-specific application is the Pennsylvania Sustainable
Energy Finance Program (PennSEF, operated by FREE and partners). 239 PennSEF provides
technical and legal assistance, as well as low-cost capital, for energy improvement projects by
municipalities (including counties and governmental agencies), universities, schools and
hospitals. For instance, the Regional Streetlight Procurement Program (RSLPP) (a program
element of PennSEF), assembles the resources to design, procure and finance the transition to
LED street lighting tailored to the specific needs of 40 municipalities in eastern Pennsylvania.
These 40 municipalities together represent over 700 thousand citizens. Importantly, the
PennSEF model shows a slightly different iteration compared to the Delaware example:
PennSEF relies on an existing authority to issue the bonds – this illustrates the flexibility of the
model as it can both rely on the creation of new authorities with bond issuing (i.e. the
Delaware example) authority or can rely on existing authorities (the PennSEF example where
the bond issuer is the Pennsylvania Economic Development Finance Authority).
236 https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/02/we-cant-wait-president-obama-announces-nearly-
4-billion-investment-energ
237 http://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/29817/second-asia-pacific-dialogue-clean-energy.pdf
238 International investigation is, among others, documented in a 2009 special issue of the Bulletin of Science,
Technology, and Society (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society. Special issue: Sustainable Energy Utilities: new
energy strategy for the new climate. Volume 29, No. 2). This special issue contains articles on SEU/SEF
investigations in, inter alia, South Korean, Indian, and African development contexts.
239 The Pennsylvania Treasury Department has partnered with the Foundation for Renewable Energy and
Environment (FREE), with financial support from the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, to develop a
prudent, market-based investment vehicle that promotes energy and water efficiency, clean energy generation,
economic development and environmental improvement.
274