Flemish One-Stop-Shop Towards Energy-efficient Renovation

Introduction

The Belgian building stock has an energy performance problem: at the current level of transition towards a nearly-zero energy building stock, it will be difficult to achieve its energy efficiency targets. Renovating public and private buildings is key in reaching these targets, as described in the Renovation Wave strategy that is part of the EU Green Deal.

Regional Responsibilities

Different from other EU Member States, in Belgium, the implementation of the EED and the EPBD is a regional responsibility. Flanders, the Walloon Region, and the Brussels Region have proposed various measures which have subsequently been combined in Belgium’s National Energy and Climate Plan 2021-2030 and the regional Long Term Renovation Strategies (LTRS’s).

Project Aim

FOSSTER’s overall aim is to integrate existing Flemish energy savings awareness programmes and combine them with best practices from related projects into a one-stop-shop model for different types of homeowners.

Integration of Services

FOSSTER will integrate successful existing guidance and support services of some of the partner Energy Houses with complementary support on:

• Implementation of renovation works
• Financial instruments aiming to unburden homeowners
• Lowering financial, technical, and administrative resistance against energy home renovation

Testing the Concept

Five Energy Houses in Flanders will test the FOSSTER concept as part of their overall energy guidance service to homeowners, including both big city environments as well as rural areas.

Future Plans

Once the service and the business case have been validated, the concept will be offered to all other Energy Houses in Flanders by integrating them into the legal framework.

Expected Outcomes

The overall result five years after project-end projects a substantial increase in the number of and the overall investment in energy renovations (€ 815 million), leading to:

1. An additional 404 GWh/year energy saving
2. A reduction of 124K tCO2/year