Resource: Energy retrofitting of Social Housing through Energy Performance Contracts (EPC)

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Lack of adapted funding is a major barrier to the energy retrofitting of social housing in Europe. Funding could be found through the Energy Performance Contracts (EPC), in which an Energy Service Company (ESCO) invests in a comprehensive refurbishment (building insulation and renovation of the heating systems), and repays itself through the generated savings.

In the IEE supported FRESH project, social housing operators and ESCO from France, United Kingdom, Italy and Bulgaria propose to work out the legal, financial and technical framework for EPC's in social housing. The main results will be the tested implementation of EPC for comprehensive refurbishment at four pilot sites, as well as concrete tools and recommendations to public authorities for possible replication at national and European level.

The present document explains how EPC’s could help structure an economic model contributing to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in social housing by a factor 4 in 2050, by securing energy savings and attracting private capital. We present the state of advancement of the pilot projects in France, Italy and the UK, as well as the situation in Bulgaria. We then analyse the major obstacles to replicate EPC’s in social housing at a larger scale, and propose legal evolutions as well as public policies in that aim.

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