Integrated Home Renovation Services Powered by Energy Community One-Stop-Shops

Introduction

RENPOWER seeks to empower and assist private homeowners to improve their home energy performance and comfort by providing citizen-led one-stop-shop integrated home renovation services (IHRS). In Ireland, citizen energy cooperative ECTC will, under the new brand name Ecovision, extend an existing service to a wider geographical area and improve access for vulnerable households.

Expansion of Services

In the Spanish regions of the Basque Country and Navarre, citizen energy cooperative GoiEner will start a completely new service. Meanwhile, the property owners union UIPI will promote replication in other EU regions, adapting to the local context, and will formulate policy recommendations.

Knowledge Sharing

The collaboration is based on reciprocal knowledge sharing. ECTC will train GoiEner in all aspects of engaging with stakeholders to create a network of collaborators for executing renovation works. This includes:

1. Setting up front- and back-office operations to initiate a one-stop shop (OSS) adapted to local needs and conditions.
2. Implementing a simple yet effective support platform for process follow-up.
3. Securing financing mechanisms from private or cooperative banks and public programs.

In exchange, based on their experience of identifying and reducing hidden energy poverty without creating a stigma, and of involving the required stakeholders, GoiEner will show ECTC how to add further energy poverty alleviation actions to their existing OSS.

Target Focus

In line with demographic differences, GoiEner will focus on homeowners and communities of multi-dwelling residential and mixed-purpose buildings, whereas ECTC will concentrate on single-family homes.

Project Goals

In both Member States, the project aims to:

• Reduce residential energy consumption.
• Promote renewable energy solutions and behavior change.
• Avoid rebound effects and enhance energy sovereignty.

Pilot buildings with fossil-fuel heating systems have been identified to kick-start activity. Further candidate buildings will be recruited gradually and enter the process funnel after initial setup activities.

Investment and Renovation Plans

We aim to renovate 200 housing units and trigger investments in energy efficiency and renewables of €6.8 million during the project’s lifetime. Activity will then ramp up during the following years, based on an economically sustainable business model. For renovations, the use of natural and sustainable materials will be prioritized.

Replication Toolkit

A Replication Toolkit will be published during the final semester of the three-year project, which will allow other interested actors to learn from our experience and implement similar OSS services in other EU regions or Member States, thus contributing to a clean energy transition in the EU.