In order to provide the most adapted content for consumers, the 17 HACKS partners produced and promoted over three years and a half:
1) A “HACKS base line report” in which each of the national teams mapped-out an overview for their country:
- The state of the art of heating and cooling technologies, policies and markets: local regulations, voluntary schemes or labels, rebates, tax incentives, replacement programmes
- The existing stock and installed technologies
- The market characteristics for HAC goods and services: key actors, market patterns
2) “HACKS Criteria papers” for 8 product groups, i.e. a detailed research on air conditioners, circulation pumps, comfort fans, local space heaters, solid fuel boilers, space heaters, water saving taps and shower heads and water heaters. Partners (and any reader) can find in these Criteria papers:
- An overview of the product’s role in buildings
- The current EU regulations and their expected impacts
- The proposed selection criteria for best products
- A brief technical overview
- A list of product characteristics that will be relevant for consumers
- How to find the data for this product category through market research
- Useful links, a glossary and a FAQ section gathering important topics for consumers
Lists of Best Available Technologies (BAT) products are designed for each product group, displayed on www.topten.eu. Both criteria papers and best product lists were regularly updated to reflect market progresses and legislative updates.
3) A “HACKS Catalogue of Key Information Topics” introduced the concepts of comfort and air quality and provided examples of solutions for reducing energy consumption while improving comfort and air quality:
- Contextual information on climate change, money savings, multiple benefits of the proposed solutions, examples of arguments to convince citizens that, whenever it can be, heating, hot water and cooling needs should be reduced.
- Advice for choosing highly efficient HAC equipment for a variety of heating and cooling systems: e.g. pros and cons of available technologies, choosing transmitters, tips for a good sizing of the equipment.
- Advice for using HAC equipment in an efficient way: e.g. maintain a convenient ambient temperature, check the tightness of the refrigeration circuit, use eco-labelled wood pellets, logs or chips.
4) Based on these three pillars, each partner undertook continuous national BAT product research – because there are differences in performance across European countries – and tailored the above information to their national market.
Hence 15 HACKS websites were developed on-line, and promoted thanks to 15 national outreach campaigns which encompassed activities and tools directly addressed to consumers, including: media outreach (print, digital, etc.), energy calculators helping to evaluate individual heating and cooling systems, prize competitions and raffles, rebate overview for HAC products, deep links towards BAT products, links towards certified installers, cooperation with consumer organisations, etc.
Between September 2019 and end of February 2023, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic and energy crisis due to the war in Ukraine affecting the project, 70 million listeners, readers and viewers were reached with information on HACKS, and HACKS-related content on partner websites reached 2.6 Mio page views.
5) Thanks to specific outreach campaigns, attention was paid to key stakeholders called “multipliers” because they relay the HACKS’ messages to their own target groups. They cover: Retailers and installers, National authorities and decision makers responsible for policy design and the definition of financial incentives, Environmental and consumer NGOs, Utilities and housing associations, Universities and research centres, Professional and trade associations, Professional (private and public) buyers, etc. The HACKS teams managed to reach 245 partnerships with multipliers and to produce 94 policy recommendations for decision makers at European and National levels.
