FESTA has the overall objective to foster local energy investments on public buildings (primarily in schools, a significant target in Italy for energy efficiency) and to spread the PPP approach also through the innovative, for the context, Energy Performance Contracts (EPC) in convergence regions. The main specific objectives of the proposed action are:1. to define technical, financial, legal and administrative specifications of a package of investments that are economically sustainable and attractive for private investors;2. to assess a PPP scheme and to define an EPC model for the energy efficiency of public buildings, also to create better condition to renewal this aged (> 30 years) buildings;3. to publish the call for tender and to procure the bundled investments through EPC and sign the investment contracts;4. to become a best practice for the mobilisation of local energy investments of the area where municipalities are preparing the SEAPs (Province of Matera – leader of this project – is the coordinator);5. to share all this advances with local actors and other MLEI European partners. Specifically, the project (regarding a complex of schools in Matera and in Policoro with the neighboring hospital) aims to experiment, with technological and method approaches, the achievement of the objective that all schools in the area become “climate neutral” by 2020.The project also aim to generate capacity building in the field of renewable energy and energy saving through:• the inter-institutional collaboration between different public authorities to increase the interventions scale (that is very important considering both the small average size of the local administrations and the low population density);• the development of approaches that pay special attention to the potential of the PPP in the field of energy;• better understanding of the features that this kind of projects should have in order to be attractive to both lenders and ESCOs.