CORDIS

A growing number of European cities and regions share the vision of a low energy city with a high quality of life for all. They voluntarily commit to ambitious energy and climate objectives and design local sustainable energy policies, strategies and action plans that guide their energy transition.
On average, the largest energy consumers in a city are residential buildings (37%). There is a huge potential for achieving energy savings and CO2 reductions in the residential sector.
However, it is not the easiest sector to deal with. First, it is not under the direct responsibility of local and regional authorities. Second, it faces a very complex set of non-financial barriers which include: citizens’ low awareness of the benefits of energy retrofits; competing household priorities; and a lack of skills to carry out high quality global refurbishment with guaranteed energy savings.
Moreover, energy renovation of residential buildings involves a myriad of market actors (construction companies, craftsmen, real estate agencies, etc.) who are not organised and coordinated to be able to offer an easy, global and guaranteed energy saving solution to homeowners.
These non-financial barriers interact with an important financial barrier. Financing the energy retrofitting of buildings is a great challenge. With investments ranging from €200 to €1,200 /m² (CITYnvest study, 2015), access to attractive and long-term financing is perceived as the primary barrier to carrying out ambitious energy retrofits, in particular those aiming at achieving 50-75% energy savings.
Such a non-exhaustive list of barriers would dissuade many from taking action. However, more and more local and regional authorities are taking up the challenge! And they are actually in the most favourable position to do so as they know the best energy sources, people and buildings in their territories. Moreover, they are perceived as trusted and legitimate coordinators of housing retrofit programmes by homeowners and market actors.
Ideally, all services and incentives related to energy retrofits should be provided by a one-stop-shop as to make the renovation easy and attractive for homeowners. Such a one-stop-shop package should include:
• Development of products adapted to consumers’ concerns
• Targeted marketing & communication
• Independent advisors who accompany homeowners through the renovation process from A to Z and guarantee its high quality at each stage: information > preparation > financing > implementation > monitoring of results.
• Coordination of a chain of suppliers and contractors to deliver a global high quality solution to homeowners
• Long-term and affordable financing.
In particular, developing a long term and low interest financial product is a key lever of such a service, as it has a positive impact on homeowners’ ability and willingness to pay for the advisory work, which has to be performed in order to deliver quality retrofits.
These tasks may be carried out by local and regional authorities or they can be delegated to public, private or mixed (public-private) operators. Today, only few such one-stop-shops exist.
The main objective of the INNOVATE project is to develop and roll-out integrated energy efficiency service packages in 11 target territories.