Bringing about change within any sector is a challenge. Transforming energy use in Europe’s homes to adapt to new energy landscape is a particularly complex one. A new norm in for example light bulb manufacturing, as we have seen, once agreed can be speedily rolled out.

Housing, particularly existing housing is another story. The range of tenures requires a diversified outreach strategy, home owners, private rental, poor owners in condominiums mean that there is no single target group, add to that the range of building types and the climates and things become even less straight forward.

Consider the entire construction and renovation sector due to its relative fragmentation and the range of actors along the building chain from architects, to electricians, to plasterers and you have a lot more potential missing links… Taking this challenge to European level brings more diversity as the mix of tenures, political will to act and therefore the available financial support, organization of the housing sector and skills levels within the construction sector varies in each country and even in each region.

CECODHAS Housing Europe has stepped up to the challenge, the public, cooperative and social housing organizations own and manage 12% of Europe’s residential building stock housing over 50 million people. With the right financial and legal framework, these local organizations of which there are over 400,000 are well positioned to lead the large scale adaptation of housing and with it the adaptation of the complete housing delivery and refurbishment chain to the new global energy realities.

This challenge requires an extensive mobilization and the CECODHAS tool developed to achieve this is the POWER HOUSE EUROPE initiative which with the support of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme has been assisting public, cooperative and social housing federations to mobilise their members from the bottom up and most importantly has been facilitating active mutual learning and exchange across the EU.

Below you will find an updated on the work done by each POWER HOUSE Platform since the beginning of the POWER HOUSE EUROPE initiative in October 2008…enjoy the reading!

Vít Vaníček, President, CECODHAS Housing Europe.

Partnership/Networking

The National Platform POWER HOUSE Bulgaria aimed at developing and strengthening the partnerships between different parties involved at national level. In this regard, a series of national events were organized in cooperation with the platform members in order to discuss and coordinate the efforts to place the energy efficiency in housing management and renovation on the state’s top agenda with emphasis on the following main topics:

• Renovation of Condominium Housing (April 2009);
• Energy Efficiency in Condominium Buildings (May 2009), The Future of Bulgarian Mass Housing (March, 2010);
• Energy Efficient Services for Condominiums (November 2010);
• Housing Renovation through Guaranteed Quality of the Supply Chain and Standards for Energy Certification of Buildings (January 2011);
• Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Sustainable Way for Reduction of Energy Dependency and Fuel Poverty (April 2011).

The networking activity of the National Platform POWER HOUSE Bulgaria culminated in a conclusive national meeting on the successful opening of the National Program for Renovation of Existing Condominium Buildings under measure Housing Policy of the Operational Program Regional Development 2007-2013 with the use of subsidies for mass housing renovation from the EU funds.

The international dimension of network activities is presented by the participation of Bulgarian Housing Association in the UNECE First Workshop on Energy Efficiency in Housing (April 2009) where the National Platform POWER HOUSE Bulgaria was announced with one of its main goals to promote the sustainable models for energy efficient renovation of condominium housing.

The Union of Homeowners Associations as one of the most active members of the National Platform POWER HOUSE Bulgaria organized regular seminars for homeowners and their associations with emphasis on the innovative housing renovation techniques, the energy saving measures when maintaining multi-story apartment blocks, and the funding opportunities to cover the investments in energy efficiency.

Impact on National Policies

The members of the National Platform POWER HOUSE Bulgaria continuously worked on the preparation, implementation and further development of the Condominium Act which was enacted in May 2009 and subsequently amended in February 2010, January 2011 and July 2011. In the period 2008-2001, the members of the POWER HOUSE Platform contributed to formulate the implementation strategy of the Operational Program Regional Development 2007-2013 in its part dedicated to housing and urban development.

Finance

Bulgarian Housing Association encouraged the promotion of the financial tools for energy efficient housing renovation investigated in the context of POWER HOUSE EUROPE Project. These models were used to develop and implement local financial mechanisms in pilot renovation schemes such as REECL (Residential Energy Efficiency Credit Line) Program, STACCATO initiative for energy efficient renovation of condominium housing by use of innovative enhanced energy efficient measures, and ESCO based financial model of DALKIA Bulgaria.

Click HERE to find our more on the Bulgarian POWER HOUSE Platform!

Partnership/Networking

English members have benefited from understanding the large-scale retrofit programmes that have been undertaken in Austria and Germany and used these experiences to lobby the UK government on the requirements for England.

European Dimension

The project was used to raise the profile of European funding streams and encourage housing associations to apply for EU grants. Several of our members (Places for People, Radian, Black Country Housing Association, Plus Dane, Riverside, Liverpool Housing Trust etc.) are now part of Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) or ERDF projects and aware of E2B, Framework Programme 7 (FP7). We are now working with several partnerships to look at applying for ELENA funding and possibly the new European Energy Efficiency (EEE) facility. We also made housing associations aware of European Investment Bank funding (EIB) and put together a consortium to try and attract EIB finance through a financial intermediary to enable housing associations to invest in photovoltaic and benefit from the feed in tariffs (FiT) initiative.

Finance

The Federation lobbied the English managing authorities to redirect the 4% of their ERDF allocation to energy efficient retrofit projects.  They used their POWER HOUSE colleagues’ help, in particular the French who have been very successful, to develop the English lobbying strategy. POWER HOUSE conferences and information were also very useful in putting them in touch with relevant key stakeholders such as the Commission and the EIB JESSICA team to discuss how EU financing mechanisms could be used for social housing retrofit. This enabled them to come up with a solution (using ERDF as a loan to pay for PVs and use the revenues of FiT to pay off the loan) and lobby the Greater London Authority so that the London Green fund includes a social housing fund.
The Federation was successful in ensuring most managing authorities redirect 4% of their ERDF allocation to energy efficient retrofit and made new finance available to its members.
 
The lobby work with ERDF managing authorities means that additional funding was made available to housing associations to fund retrofit projects. To date, 6 partnerships in the South East, North West and North East are in the process of carrying out an ERDF project. In the South East, Radian’s first project is already completed and an interesting outcome is a financial study carried out by Global Environmental Solution Business (GESB) suggesting a ‘revolving guarantee fund’ as a way to financing large-scale retrofit in the social housing sector and the private sector as well. Radian has now secured a second tranche of ERDF from the South East managing authority to try and pilot the concept.
In Wales, colleagues have successfully lobbied their managing authority to redirect £29m of ERDF to retrofit projects. They have also secured monies from the Welsh Assemblies to pilot the GESB revolving guarantee fund model and hope to do so with the latest KfW ELENA facility. In Scotland, colleagues are negotiating with the managing authority for a JESSICA £15m social housing fund.

In all cases, the ERDF work has made new finance available to members, encouraged them to form partnership to apply for it, and made them aware of other EU funding opportunities such as ELENA and EEE, for which they are now considering applying. Outcomes of the completed projects have been innovative and are suggesting new ways forward of financing retrofitting.
English powerhouse members have also done lobby work on the new EEE finance source and asked that the fund made below-commercial-rate long-term finance available to address the current market problem.
As recouping the costs of investment in energy efficiency work is proving difficult for social landlords in some countries, they have raised this issue at EU level. The UK Green Deal model might provide a solution to the rest of the EU and for this reason, they have been sharing information on this with their POWER HOUSE colleagues.

Through a working group and now the chairing of the Department of Energy and Climate Change social housing sub-committee, they are addressing these issues on behalf of their members. They  have also submitted amendments to the Energy Bill as it made its way through the two houses and will be lobbying on the secondary legislation, whose process is due to start in October 2011.

Work within the Federation

The Powerhouse platform in the UK has fulfilled its ambitions in that Federation members and UK housing associations are more aware of EU funding opportunities and the UK have been active in ensuring the 4% ERDF legislation amendment was used – although managing authorities in some cases have refused to redirect the funds for various reasons. They have also used their expertise to ensure their colleagues in Wales and Scotland were able to ensure the funds were redirected for their members.
The Federation has also further benefited from Powerhouse project for knowledge of ELENA, EEE and EIB finance.
ERDF and EU finance bids have led to organisations forming partnerships.
Knowledge and expertise has been exchanged with European colleagues and has been beneficial both ways, with the English platform sharing good practice around suppliers’ obligations, JESSICA mechanisms and the developing Green Deal, while taking on board European funding mechanisms (GESB revolving guarantee fund model and ESCOs) and learning from initiatives (passiv haus, feed in tariffs, ERDF from France).

Impact on members

The UK has been able to learn from their European partners about their experience of feed-in tariffs. This has been particularly useful in terms of understanding the market and predicting likely trends in terms of degression.
They have also benefited from understanding the large-scale retrofit programmes that have been undertaken in Austria and Germany and used these experiences to lobby the UK government on the requirements for England.
This has informed our lobbying stance fort the Feed in Tariff and more recently Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) initiatives here. We are also using these examples with our Green Deal lobby.
Ultimately this will enable our members to benefit from a supporting environment and legislations to retrofit their stock.

Click HERE to find our more on the English POWER HOUSE Platform!

Partnership/Networking

At the beginning, USH and HTC were the only participants in the POWER HOUSE French platform; now, the Working Group "Europe" of social housing organisations, GrDF, La Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and the Regional Associations are also involved in the Platform.
A networking between French housing organizations and other European Housing organisations has been established for knowledge exchanges :

• 1 study visit of Logirep (French social housing organisation) in Austria
• 1 study visit of BRE (UK) of Logement Français (French social housing organisation) refurbishment programme in Dammarie les Lys
• participation of Stefan Borjesson (Swedish architect) to a Bat’Im club workshop (French working group of builders and housing managers),

USH will also participate in Kiev in a seminar on ESCOs. The French POWER HOUSE Platform helped the launch of this partnership with the publication of information about the FRESH project that will complement the information collected on the only 4 ESCOs existing in France.

The French POWER HOUSE Platform helped disseminating the results of the French proposals made to the EU in the project TACKOBST. This project is meant  to develop country tools (guides and books of recommendations) that aim, firstly, to give some “food for thought” to relevant stakeholders  (the State services, local authorities, the residents' associations, energy suppliers) to better overcome the legal, technical and social obstacles and, secondly, to enable managers to apply energy-saving refurbishments more easily.
In conclusion, the “Club France” of the Covenant of Majors is interested in the partnership with the French POWER HOUSE Platform.

European Dimension

For the French part, the USH is creating a National Observatory of Energy on refurbishment and new building projects. The French POWER HOUSE Platform should be integrated in such observatory in order to share the knowledge from other European countries in the areas of energy efficiency of buildings.
The exchange is useful to share experience on the best use of ERDF. Now USH is being asked to exchange this experience by the European Commission at European level. This could be done through the POWER HOUSE EUROPE website.

Finance

The USH is involved in a lobbying movement for the future ERDF use (from 2013). These lobbying actions aimed at cancel the 4% cap of the ERDF budget used for energy efficiency in buildings.

In this context, Carine Puyol (from USH and French POWER HOUSE Platform coordinator) has participated in two meetings:

• 1 speech at the COCOF (Coordinating Committee of the Structural Funds)
• 1 speech at the "Energy Week" in Brussels

In a national perspective, the French platform has enabled the coordination of Social Housing regional associations on the use of ERDF for the energy efficiency of buildings.The French POWER HOUSE Platform was used as a tool for the capitalisation of renovation projects funded by the ERDF in France.

Local housing providers want to get strategic Energy Action Plans in place within their organizations to achieve their targets. They see a huge learning potential in having a structured exchange with their French and European counterparts on issues related to choice of products, sources of finance and new technologies. Members want to learn more about experiences gained through completed projects, in particular they report a lack of information on costs of investment in energy efficiency, costs of maintenance, resulting energy savings made. The POWER HOUSE Platform will work to help members access the information they need and will assist them in getting involved in European projects. Study visits will be an important component of the work. The French POWER HOUSE Team will also work to ensure that information on EU funding streams such as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) will reach those who need it at local level.

Work within the Federation

The French POWER HOUSE Platform coordinator USH - Union Sociale pour l’Habitat, worked with regional social housing associations for the implementation of the ERDF. The coordination work led regional associations to coordinate their regional institutions in order to develop a strategy for using ERDF in regions.
After reviewing the outputs of completed Intelligent Energy Europe Funded projects, based on a needs analysis conducted with their members, the POWER HOUSE France team selected the most useful ones for social housing organisations in France and grouped them according to the planning, construction and use phases of the building.  At national level, the USH continues to support the social housing organisations in achieving the objectives of the Grenelle, in particular in using the resources of the French POWER HOUSE Platform. At regional level, USH works with regional social housing associations for the implementation of the ERDF.

Impact on members

The results appear to be particularly significant, especially if we take into account the real difficulty to mobilize nearly 800 French social housing organisations. These results (including projects that resulted in funding from Europe) show that there is real potential in the exploitation of the French POWER HOUSE Platform.

Moreover, the French POWER HOUSE Platform acted as a relay to the EU request regarding the costs of energy retrofitting by transmitting the results of the survey led on members of the USH (“Request from the European Commission for concrete case studies with cost of energy retrofit and pay-back time”).

Click HERE to find our more on the French POWER HOUSE Platform!

Partnership/Networking

At national level, the POWER HOUSE Spanish platform has established partnerships with the following entities:

• CENER (Centro Nacional de Energías Renovables);
• IDAE (Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía);
• IVE  (Insituto Valenciano de la Edificiación);
• RIVA (Oficina Rehabilitación Integral de Valencia, – Ruzafa. Generalitat Valenciana).

It also established several collaborations with:

• CENER, in the dissemination of low energy buildings, especially dissemination between the public promoters of the project Rockwool on NZEB buildings;
• IDAE, in developing campaigns for the use of renewable energy in housing, particularly solar, geothermal and biomass;
• IVE, for the dissemination of energy rating tool “ICE” (Informe de Conservación y evaluación energética del edificio).

Impact on national policies

The feedback coming from the POWER HOUSE Spanish platform was incorporated into national strategy documents, publications or legislation. The POWER HOUSE Spanish Platform has done an important work of lobbying, particularly with the Ministries of housing and energy.

This work is a reality today through the:

• Participation in an experts table on Housing Renovation and Energy Efficiency retrofitting created by the Ministry of Housing and Public Works dealing with economical and social aspects together with other social actors and the housing ministry representatives.
• Creation of a working group of renovation and efficiency energy in social housing dealing with legal and technical changes. This group aims to produce new regulations and policies in this area.
• Works the Spanish institution IDAE that promotes the use of renewable energy (biomass, solar, thermal), and which provides regular summaries on the use of these energies to the Ministry of energy.

European Dimension

The Spanish POWER HOUSE Platform met DG ENER of the European Commission in Brussels in order to expose the problems that Spanish social housing providers had with the financing tools JESSICA and ELENA.
In addition, the Platform organized a discussion Seminar exclusively on sources of financing for European social housing, and in particular to efficient retrofitting, inviting to participate to Karima Deli, MEP (Green Party). During the debate highlighted the barriers that the housing public promoters find when accessing to these funds.

At EU level, the Spanish POWER HOUSE Platform has also met FEDERCASA (Italy) and CECODHAS Portugal. AVS and its POWER HOUSE Platform, together with FEDERCASA has considered the possibility of the creation of a Working Group along with Portugal and Greece, to analyze the problems and solutions of energy efficiency in housing from a point of view of Mediterranean climate, with a special focus on NZEB buildings.

Finance

A meeting in Brussels on March 2010 with representatives of EIB and the Covenant of Majors (Pedro Ballesteros) was organized to discuss about financing programs.

The platform participates with the Housing Ministry in the retrofitting group of experts with the following entities:

• Secretary of State;
• Instituto para la Diversificación y Ahorro de la Energía (IDAE);
• Public, private and cooperative housing providers;
• Confederación de Cajas de Ahorro (CECA);
• Spanish Association of Banks (AEB);
• Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO);
• Observatory of Building (SEOPAN).

The Spanish POWER HOUSE Platform, together with the Institute for Alternative Energies IDAE, has carried out information campaigns nationwide by reporting on the economic aid and technical solutions of the use of biomass, solar thermal and geothermal energy. Furthermore, the platform has also made information campaigns on the use of the ERDF for housing, and on the  JESSICA and ELENA tools organizing open seminars.

The Spanish platform held a conference on the 5th May 2010 in Madrid, where ROOKWOOL introduced its proposal book. This meeting was planned with the main actors of BEI, Majors Covenant and Spanish MEPS; the reason was to explain to them the barriers we have for funding social housing programmes. On 22nd March 2011, a Conference on the use of the Structural Funds and the financial instruments ELENA and JESSICA was held in Madrid. In that meeting the ROOKWOOL proposal book “Edificios NZEB” was introduced.

Work within the Federation

The POWER HOUSE Spanish platform enabled improved networking with the actors and national/EU levels; 2 levels of information exchange were planned in the Spanish platform:

• dissemination of good practices to Spanish SHOs;
• dissemination of Spanish results outside the country.

Two books have been published (the 1st one in English and 2nd one in Spanish and more focused on the problems / barriers encountered in Spain).

Impact on members

Impact on Members of members: where members of federations used toolkits, submitted case studies, attended study visits, became partner in an EU project, became more interested in energy issues and actually adapted their energy strategies.
One of the main objectives of the Platform has been the identification of the main sources of funding for housing. For this reason, two seminars have been held in October 2010 (80 participants) and March 2011 (130 participants).

Complete information of the ERDF funds and the EIB loans through financial tools such as JESSICA and ELENA can be consulted on the webpage of POWER HOUSE Spain. European exchange helped to turn the crisis into an opportunity because through POWER HOUSE we have been able to identify different sources of funding. The construction sector was need as a major cause of the crisis but now housing is seen as one of the ways out of the crisis.

The information that we receive is not in Spanish and in addition there is no good distribution channels. In this sense, the Platform has done a good job translating the documents and disseminating them at the key points. We have received many compliments on the efficient information distributed by the Platform and we intend to continue in the future following this line. In the new period, we have a very good opportunity to influence national policies, as the Platform participates in the Working Group on retrofitting of the Ministry of Housing.

Click HERE to find our more on the Spanish POWER HOUSE Platform!

Partnership/Networking

The most important action for the Swedish platform was the creation of a common goal on energy efficiency. The goal is to save 20% energy from the year 2007 until 2016. The goal is like a “Kyoto protocol” that each member has to sign, and follow up every year. 103 members of SABO have joined this agreement, a considerable part of the total housing stock in Sweden. The goal inspires to networking, changing of experiences and since the goal should be achieved within a reasonable future, it is stimulating and exhilarating for the members.

The Platform members are also networking with BeBo. BeBo is a network of property owners and the Energy Agency as a financier. The main focus is to reduce dependence on energy as heat and electricity in apartment buildings, and to reduce environmental impact. Bebo's activities will lead to energy-efficient systems and products used to come on the market, by for example technical procurement. The Agency will therefore contribute with funding and expertise to Bebo, which in turn this go on to property owners by including demonstration projects carried out by members. SABO is an active partner of BeBo and the information and networking between BeBo and the SABO platform has been intensified. The main result is that Swedish platform members have so far saved 4,2% energy between 2007-2009.

European Dimension

With the help from the POWER HOUSE project, SABO has intensified its work trying to encourage members to apply for EU support, for example through conference on EU financing and through newsletters. The exchange between countries was also useful to share experience on how to get access to the use of ERDF. Furthermore, thanks to the creation of a section on the POWER HOUSE EUROPE website dedicated to potential project partners, POWER HOUSE EUROPE has also opened a possibility for SABO's Platform members to easier participate in EU projects and also find interesting case studies.

Finance

The financial barrier is still the main barrier for Swedish members to reach the objectives in cutting energy consumption. It is impossible to finance energy renovation through reduced operating costs. Energy renovation which reduces the consumption a lot is only done in a few renovation projects in Sweden because the companies need to finance this through increased rents (and reduced energy costs). The tenants with a low income can't handle raised rents and this is a barrier for energy efficiency when renovate. SABO has recently produced a report to show this to the Swedish politicians. The report also shows that different markets (where the company/building is situated) give different opportunities in energy efficiency, but also the energy price and different price constructions is a main barrier for energy efficiency. The POWER HOUSE EUROPE project has helped to identify what is being done in other countries, how to access finance and how other countries finance their renovations. To get access to the ERDF in Sweden would be one of the many solutions that need to be done to reach energy efficiency targets among members.

Impact on members

The most important result is that Swedish members have actually reduced their energy consumption. The result for 2007-2009 was a reduction of the energy consumption with 4,2 % totally and a result for 2007-2010 with about 6 % is expected.

Click HERE to find our more on the Swedish POWER HOUSE Platform!

The sole responsibility for the content of this Newsletter lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission is responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

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