Specific Challenge:

Buildings and more specifically the housing sector represent about 40% of EU energy consumption. Ambitious renovation of the ageing building stock offers huge potential to reduce that energy consumption. Lowering the energy costs for households while increasing in-house comfort will not only help to achieve EU environmental objectives, but will also benefit EU economy and contribute to social well-being.

A large-scale deep rehabilitation of the residential building stock to match the net-zero energy standards at affordable price must be achieved. Breakthrough solutions are required to reduce energy consumption in building (e.g. in space heating/cooling and domestic hot water production, maximising the envelope performances, heat recovery and local use of renewables) with the support of advanced BEM (Building Energy Management) systems. Proposals should go beyond the state of the art and previous project results of the EeB PPP.

Scope:

Research should address in-depth analysis and subsequent improvement of the renovation process, including innovative technical elements/products/processes aiming to improve the decision-making, and should be based on a collaborative multi-value multi-stakeholder exercise. Methodology, guidelines and effective operational tools are needed to ease the selection between renovation scenarios. The analysis should take into account life cycle assessment, life cycle costing, indoor environment quality, as well as user behaviour and acceptance. Research should lead to innovative concepts for a systemic approach to retrofitting which integrates the most promising cost-effective technologies and materials, in order to reduce heat losses through the building envelope and also the energy consumption by ventilation and other energy distribution systems, while increasing the share of renewable energy in buildings.

The new tools will help revalorisation of existing buildings in the long term, including the energy performance of the building as a factor of the total property value. This should be reflected in the definition of innovative business models where all relevant actors are involved, including public authorities and investors.

Proposals should aim at maximizing the capacity of replication of the developed concepts and methods for integrated sustainable renovation. Large-scale market uptake should be addressed, for example by targeting buildings with similar use conditions and/or comparable blocks of buildings or districts in need for renovation.

Proposals should show clear evidence of technical and financial viability of the solution through their application on real case demonstrations.

Activities are expected to focus on Technology Readiness Levels 5 to 7 and to be centred around TRL 6. This topic addresses cross-KET activities.

A significant participation of SMEs with R&D capacities is encouraged.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 5 and 7 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:

• Reduction of at least 60% in energy consumption in order to reach the target of near zero energy compared to the values before renovation, while enhancing indoor environmental quality.
• Decrease of installation time by at least 30% compared to typical renovation process for the building type.
• Demonstration of a high replicability potential and of large market uptake capacity.
• Affordability considering all costs involved, with a payback period below 15 years.
• New generation of skilled workers and SME contractors in the construction sector capable of applying a systemic approach to renovation.

Proposals should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the Introduction to the LEIT part of the Work Programme.