Funding available under the LIFE Clean Energy Transition Programme
How can Housing Europe members benefit from the funding available?
online, 16 November 2021 | Published in Energy
On November 10th, the European Commission and Housing Europe organised an info session dedicated to the 2021 launch of LIFE Programme calls (Subprogramme Clean Energy Transition). Projects financed under these calls focus on removing market barriers, mobilising investment, building capacity, improving skills, raising awareness and educating / empowering.
LIFE Programme calls (Subprogramme Clean Energy Transition)
General rules:
- Eligible costs: personnel, outsourcing, travel.
- Infrastructure or equipment interventions are not financed under these calls.
- Minimum 3 participants from 3 eligible countries.
- Funding rate: 95%
- Proposals of up to 2 million Euros
- Deadline for submitting proposals is January 12th.
(This report is available also in Spanish)
From the roster of calls, the ones deemed more relevant for public, social and cooperative social housing providers were the following:
1. “Addressing building related interventions for vulnerable districts (LIFE-2021-CET-ENERPOV)”
The topic aims to alleviate energy poverty by addressing the reduced energy efficiency of dwellings as well as poor insulation with polluting heating/cooling systems which end up reducing the comfort of the occupants.
Proposals can include on or a combination of the following:
- Roll out holistic, industrialised deep renovation solutions (ex. Energie Sprong).
- Develop and implement roadmaps of energy efficiency measures (that can be conducted step by step). By the end of the project, the renovation would need to start.
- Develop and implement roadmaps of energy efficiency measures that can be conducted step by step for social housing organisations
The intervention can take place either on (1) vulnerable / energy poor geographic districts, (2) in clusters of buildings of vulnerable residents or (3) groups of buildings with common management.
Any project should also ensure the regular involvement of the residents. All actions must be coupled by accompanying measures to adapt residents' post-intervention energy use behaviour, through e.g., community engagement campaigns, counselling, or trainings.
2. “Large-scale rollout of industrialised deep renovation solutions (LIFE-2021-CET-BUILDRENO)”
Applicants should develop and promote solutions tackling market barriers, increase the volume of energy renovation, reduce investment costs, and other solutions to make the whole renovation process more attractive for all those involved.
The project may build on already proven measures on technical innovations, e.g., standardised prefabrication and off-site construction, digital tools such as Building Information Modelling, Plug & Play technical building systems, or non-technical innovations, for example, business models, performance guarantees, design and procurement processes.
3. “Integrated Home Renovation Services (LIFE-2021-CET-HOMERENO)”
The idea of this topic is to reduce the burden or difficulty of homeowners by providing integrated renovation services (so-called one-stop-shop for renovations). In essence, the homeowners interested in carrying out and funding renovations in their homes will only need to talk to a single person, instead of several people or entities.
Applicants should propose projects to create or replicate “integrated home renovation services”, which would include building internal capacity and expertise, connecting all actors in the value chain, streamlining access to support measures and funding, improve visibility and information of the services.
Note: the end of the project should lead to the implementation of the renovations by the supported homeowners.
See OPENGELA project as an example.
The call asks for projects that create assistance services to project development, which includes developing a business plan, the feasibility study, financial engineering, technical specifications and procurement procedures. The pilot assistance services should be scalable and/or easily adopted by organisations in other countries/ regions.
Particularly for this call, a leverage factor is demanded, that is, for every euro of the LIFE Programme project financing, 10 euros should be invested in the housing renovation to be carried out at the end of the same project.
Proposals for a single member-state are eligible in this topic.