Holistic AProach and Platform for the deep renovation of the med residential built ENvironment

Project Information

HAPPEN

Grant agreement ID: 785072

DOI

10.3030/785072

Project closed

EC signature date 26 January 2018

Start date 1 April 2018

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 2 108 827,50

EU contribution

€ 2 108 827,50

Coordinated by

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HAPPEN (Holistic AProach and Platform for the deep renovation of the med residential built ENvironment)

Reporting period: 2019-10-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

HAPPEN aims at developing and activating a holistic, transparent and adaptive approach to deep and beyond (= towards nZEB) retrofitting tailored for the Med space and for the residential sector named MedZEB. The MedZEB approach addresses the energy retrofitting of the built stock. Renovation rate across Europe is around 1%, in EU Med countries it is up to 2-3 times lower than in north-western ones. On the other hand, EU Med retrofitting markets show commonalities that allow thinking of an integrated Med challenge, characterized by different exigencies than in other EU areas. Unlocking Med retrofitting markets would provide large societal benefits: the reactivation of the building sector; the reduction of soil consumption; energy savings for lower income households; environmental gains and overall increase of well-being and health of the built stock.
HAPPEN will carry out an extended “background work” to establish a reliable, effective and integrated set of standard solutions optimized for the Med space, according to the following specific objectives:
1. To empower the key actors of the retrofitting value chain so to enable the market uptake of deep retrofitting interventions: the Living Labs methodology will be applied and training materials will be produced in all the languages of the consortium (covering all EU Med countries).
2. To standardize the interventions and their quality level, by:
― defining cost-optimal one-stop-shop packages of solutions tailored for the Med space;
― integrating non technological aspects such as the well-being and environmental sustainability;
― individuating innovative financial solutions for the Med space;
― developing a staged retrofitting strategy, based on the elaboration of retrofitting roadmaps.
3. To create an assisted digital marketplace for the deep and beyond retrofitting of buildings: the HAPPEN platform, designed to become the reference portal at EU level for the retrofitting market in the Med space.
4. To test and validate the project outputs by carrying out Pilot Actions in all partner countries.
5. To suggest new regulatory approaches, in order to stimulate high political level discussions on the necessity of creating purpose frameworks for the Med areas.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Regarding the abovementioned Specific Objectives, the work done and relative results are the following:
1. Living Labs have been activated in all of HAPPEN pilot sites; the “phase A” of the LLs have been duly completed. The standard training modules, for both horizontal and vertical training have been produced. Each LL encompassed several training sessions, which allowed to engage and train a large number of subjects, and to gather valuable requirements and feedbacks on the main outputs to be developed and to generate the initial nucleus of the HAPPEN community.
2.
― The main deliverables necessary for the cost-optimal calculations have been successfully completed. The calculus power necessary for the optimization work has been allocated, and the calculus procedure has started according to the SEDICAE methodology; the result is a cloud of points of the Pareto front showing the cost-optimal package of solutions (COPSs) either in terms of payback period, initial investment, or LCA. All COPSs will be calculated both in one-step and multi-steps approach.
― The evaluation of the overall holistic impact of energy renovation has been started. The MedZEB Voluntary Certification Scheme has been issued as first batch, including also the valuation of non-energy benefits of retrofitting.
― The HAPPEN financial solution has been developed, after the analysis of current regulatory and incentives frameworks and of financial solutions actually available among partner countries. The HAPPEN solution pursues the coupling between financial support and cost-optimal staged renovation, aimed at minimizing the initial investment and maximizing the sustainability of the intervention also for low-income house owners.
― The “HAPPEN Programme” has been released as first batch, including three main stages. The first related to the engagement of clients by means of the HAPPEN platform. The second encompassing a direct interaction between the client and the MedZEB expert, which will be trained on basis of the training modules developed in the phase B of Living Labs. The third is related to the real energy renovations which will be carried out in the framework of the HAPPEN protocol.
3. The HAPPEN platform is currently under development. The Analysis on tools and modules has been delivered. A continuative co-design process of the platform is ongoing, involving all the consortium partners.
4. Pilot projects have been activated within all the HAPPEN pilot sites. Test and validation of the HAPPEN COPSs is undergoing, basing on the availability of the first outcomes of the cost-optimal analysis. Impact monitoring associated to the pilot cases is ongoing, and the outlook until the end of the project is positive.
5. Task on Regulatory Upgrade Proposals has been duly activated.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Different criteria were proposed for defining climatic zones. The final decision was a compromise between specific climate peculiarities and a reasonable number of climates and is represented in a Pan-European climate map.
Previous project results have been used to define a new approach for the definitio of reference buildings for the HAPPEN project: apart from geometry, importance has been given to the thermal characteristics of the building envelope and to parameters regarding airtightness, ventilation or HVAC systems.
Another project output is represented by the Cost Optimal Packages of Solutions: a total of 16 packages of optimal solutions have been identified for 4 reference buildings and 4 reference climates in the Mediterranean Region. Each of these solutions is composed of 12 combinations of renovation measures which minimize the Life Cycle Cost of the building over a time period of 30 years.
A step-by-step approach to the renovation process has been proposed in order to make the cost more affordable for homeowners.
A MedZEB protocol has been designed and developed to meet the transparency requirements of the MedZEB approach and to guarantee that the retrofitting process will be carried out properly along the whole value chain, it will have to be signed by all the stakeholders involved in the retrofitting value chain.
The Protocol is aimed at:
― bridging the gap between designed and actual energy performance;
― supporting and sharing reliable energy performance standards, quality of certification and labelling schemes.
Integrated cost optimal packages of solutions are included in the Protocol that will be open only to subjects who have undergone proper training on the MedZEB approach.
The main ambition of the MedZEB Protocol is to design and implement a Building Renovation Roadmap tailored to the Mediterranean Area also taking into account recent developments of EU legislation. One signification innovations of the Protocol is to provide an ad hoc financial solution to allow step-by-step building retrofitting to be carried out on the basis of cost optimal packages of solutions.
The MedZEB protocol has been completed with a Voluntary Certification Scheme which takes into account not only energy aspects but also comfort and sustainability issues tailored to the requirements of the Med Area.

Pan-European climate map

Examples of representative buildings