Overcoming market barriers and promoting deep renovation of buildings

The focus of submitted proposals should be aiming at overcoming market barriers to deep renovation within the value chain. Any building type may be included (public or private, residential or non-residential).

Renovations can take place at one point in time or be staged in a step-by-step approach, but in any case they should strive to achieve ""deep renovation"" (at least 60% energy savings compared to pre-renovation levels) or aim towards Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) performance. Proposals might consider integration of voluntary certification schemes along with energy performance certificate, including elements of indoor quality classification for buildings.

Proposals should address at least two of the following options (list not exhaustive):

• Support to consumers or end-users
• Support the implementation of renovation road maps resulting from the EED/EPBD
• Address the gap between designed and actual energy performance; support reliable energy performance standards, quality of certification and labelling schemes, etc.
• Increase the number of deep renovations by means of :
  • Solutions that offer affordable deep renovation to a large number of individual consumers (e.g. owners or end-users) and/or
  • Targeting large groups of building units in order to take advantage of opportunities for simplification and cost reduction and the potential for further replication.
• Support the use of existing financial mechanisms, instruments and innovative business models to address market failures, in particular split incentives.

The proposals should build on previous experience, including the outcome of Intelligent Energy Europe projects.

Synergies may be considered with activities initiated under the topic LCE-17-2017.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 1 and 2 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

In order to achieve the EU 2020 energy efficiency objectives, the renovation rate needs to increase from the present level of 1.2% per annum to at least 2-3% (with a specific target for the public sector of 3%) and the energy performance of renovations needs to improve. Both the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) contain several provisions in this respect. The environmental sustainability of renovation process but more importantly, the health and wellbeing of the occupants are also relevant. This might lead to consideration of aspects partially covered by different pieces of EU legislation such as REACH, the Water Framework Directive[[2000/60/EC (EU Water Framework Directive) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32000L0060]] the Construction Products Regulation[[Construction Products Regulation (EU 305/2011) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:088:0005:0043:EN:PDF]] etc.

Many barriers, which are not necessarily technological, hamper the implementation of these provisions. For example: diversity and fragmentation within the building value chain; inefficient and complex renovation processes; a lack of deep renovation packages; low development and uptake of financial packages or incentives (e.g. grants, credits); unclear energy or environmental requirements in renovation grants or procurement processes; low progress in performance guarantees. There is therefore, a need to overcome these regulatory and non-regulatory barriers to facilitate the renovation of existing building stocks.

Depending on the options chosen to address in the Scope, proposals are expected to demonstrate the impacts listed below in the participant countries (wherever possible, using quantified indicators and targets):

• Increased rate of renovation in the targeted area or sector (local, regional or national; public or private; residential; non-residential);
• Increased number of individual deep renovations (exceeding 60% energy savings compared to pre-renovation levels);
• Energy savings and renewable energy triggered through deep renovations;
• Increased compliance rate in deep renovations;
• Improved environmental sustainability of deep renovation solutions.