The design of the strategy for the European project RENOVERTY begins, which aims to create roadmaps that help families to energetically rehabilitate their homes.
The start coincides precisely with the confirmation by the Generalitat of the expansion of the budget intended to help those families who want to rehabilitate energy in sparsely populated areas of Catalonia .
And, although it is still pending publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, which will make it effective , the new Energy Efficiency in Buildings Directive has already been adopted.
To develop a strategy that serves as a roadmap to address the energy rehabilitation process in families that suffer from energy vulnerability, it is necessary to design measures that contemplate the full scope of the barriers . For this reason, from Ecoserveis and within the framework of the RENOVERTY project, the first group co-design cycle is being promoted to identify barriers and possible solutions that accompany families when starting an energy rehabilitation project. Specifically, the co-design cycle that is now ending has based its analysis on a sample compiled thanks to twenty energy audits and on the creation of three work spaces, one with citizens and two more with actors that may be related to the energy rehabilitation process of homes, either from the local administration or business side.
And, nevertheless, the conclusions of the study carried out so far are clear: both on the citizen and technical side, a wide range of barriers have been identified that are more linked to access to rehabilitation than to the most technical part of it. In other words, the great barrier to rehabilitation is everything prior to the moment of formalizing an energy rehabilitation project.
First barrier: the economic one
The major barrier identified in any of the activities carried out is the economic one . Facing the expenses associated with a rehabilitation project is expensive and, if we add the inflation in the prices of materials in recent times, the grievance increases. The solution to this barrier would be to improve access to financing and tax credits . However, both have also been categorized as barriers in themselves. On the one hand, despite having access to subsidies, the family is the one who has to advance the money. In addition, the different aids are difficult to process and often remain pending due to requirements in the information to be provided. And as if it were not complex enough, the documentation to be submitted can vary between one type of aid or another, generating a bottleneck between the planning of the rehabilitation and the work to be carried out.
Context and construction sector
This accumulation of requests may aggravate the current situation of the construction sector and the installer sector. During the co-design of the strategy, specialists in rehabilitation projects have expressed that both sectors are aging and have few personnel to carry out the works. In addition, the use of certain materials or others for the works requires a specific type of training, which represents another barrier if the execution time of the work is too long if the trained personnel ultimately give up on proceeding.
Access to information
Thus, if the economic and implementation barriers are resolved, training for families comes into play . How information about what energy rehabilitation is, what benefits it brings, what aid is available and who it can be directed to are issues that need to be addressed. Administrations, rehabilitation offices, local energy communities, property managers, rehabilitation agents… All of them are fundamental actors for empowerment in terms of energy. In addition, it must be taken into account that even if families receive this information and agree to rehabilitate their homes, most of them live in rental properties or in neighborhood communities, where some mediation is needed, either with the property or with the rest of the community. In some cases, and especially if we consider those multi-family homes, there is not even a consolidated community of owners or the figure of a property manager. For all this, the study considers it essential that there is a “mediator” figure who can offer support throughout this process.
Barriers and solutions identified in the energy rehabilitation of homes with energy vulnerability
During the co-creation with the citizens, it was explained how an energy rehabilitation works, what are the steps to follow and what financial aid is currently available. However, the participants were asked to share what difficulties they identified when considering starting this process and what possible solutions. Citizen results:
Barriers:
• Prioritize conservation rehabilitation instead of applying energy efficiency criteria
• Restrictions by urban planning
• How information about associated benefits reaches citizens
• Digital divide
• Remote public administration
• Lack of knowledge in energy culture
• Families have other priorities
• Lack of funding
• Lack of business model in collective rehabilitation
• Very complex aid processing
• Many families are renting, who should rehabilitate and how does it affect the rental price?
Solutions:
• Improve dissemination/information
• Seek synergies with associations/cooperatives to unlock access to information
• Facilitate associated administrative procedures
• Increase personal income tax deductions
• Creation of rehabilitation offices with a social perspective
• Create the figure of mediator within energy communities to provide support to families
• Create a forum or discussion space to share experiences
For the sessions with actors participating in the energy rehabilitation process, we have started from the data collected thanks to the sampling of audits, where we have identified many typologies of family unit and different characteristics that may or may not share access to housing. After analyzing the different scenarios within the participation spaces, we have worked on breaking down the different steps to follow when starting an energy rehabilitation process to identify barriers and their transversality towards families.
Barriers:
• Economic
• Access to aid
• Cumbersome and complicated procedures
• Disinformation in energy culture
• Distrust: much is demanded in a short time; temporary nature of aid
• They detect a lack of interest due to not having a short-term benefit
• Difficulties in reaching agreements in neighborhood communities
• There is a lack of a figure who provides support to families
• Lack of communication between actors participating in the process (administration, companies, property managers, etc.)
• Business sector of installers and construction with few workers
The barriers have been grouped into umbrella themes in order to work on finding solutions: Economic capacity, access and procedures for subsidies, lack of knowledge and distrust in the energy sector, unattractive investment returns, aging sector, low coordination between actors, lack of support for families, agreements between property owners and tenants and agreements between neighborhood communities.
Although it has been strongly emphasized that the main barrier and the one that must be worked on more thoroughly in order to continue with the rest of the measures is the economic one, the following is a list of the ideas obtained so far that will serve as the basis for the design of the roadmap:
• Economic capacity:
o Cross-taxation
o Registration notation for seniors
o Financing and promotion of local administration
o Quotas to avoid large investments
• Access and procedures for subsidies:
o Social advance
o Establish social and environmental impact criteria
o Add the rural focus
o More dissemination of criteria and conditions of subsidies through rehabilitation offices
o Simplification of procedures
• Ignorance and distrust in the energy sector:
o Share success stories to generate a domino effect
o Regional offices, local action groups, energy communities as mediators and generators of trust
o More awareness
o Strengthen the community network to promote rehabilitation
• Unattractive investment returns:
o Bridging loans for companies (only the part that is not covered by the subsidy has to be paid and the company waits for the money to arrive)
• Aging sector:
o Integration plans
o Training of installers
• Low coordination between actors:
o Housing tables led by local action groups
o Knowledge exchange and state of the sector conferences
• Lack of support for families:
o Incorporate the figure of the rehabilitation agent
o Study / map the housing stock to know the needs of rehabilitation and be able to prioritize and support
• Agreements between ownership and rental:
o Promotion of rental models with rehabilitation (example: urban farmhouse)
o Rental price linked to the energy certificate
o Housing on transfer of use with public mediation
• Agreements between neighborhood communities:
o Mediator figure; rehabilitation agent
Additionally and to reinforce the diagnosis of barriers and solutions Ecoserveis participated in the Energy and Sustainable Construction Fair. During the day we had the opportunity to talk both with citizens interested in energy rehabilitation and different relevant actors in the process. Below, barriers and opportunities identified at the FECS:
Barriers:
• Misinformation and lack of trust
• Organization among neighbors and how to convince them to pay
• Inflation and increase in the price of materials make rehabilitation actions much more expensive
• Very high initial investment
• People renting do not request rehabilitation services
• Lack of maintenance culture
• Very poor BPO construction
• Lack of advances or mechanisms
• Non-existent link between the technical and social worlds
• Lack of professional training
• Lack of trust in the administration in the resolutions of the procedures
Solutions:
• Mediator figure to provide comprehensive support to families
• Strengthen the training of installers and builders
• City Councils could have a mailbox to receive complaints/requests from citizens
• Innovative financial mechanisms with installment payments or soft loans
• Training of neighborhood communities in decision-making
• Reduce bureaucratic barriers, simplify processes
• Support offices by the administration
• List qualified and recommended professionals
• Regularization of rental tenure in terms of rehabilitation
• Cooperativism in the construction sector and integration of the social perspective
• Lack of references in the public media
More information about the RENOVERTY project at this link .
* Co-funded by the European Union under project ID 101077033. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
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