Housing Europe in the advisory board of the TRIME Project

The multiple benefits of energy saving

Brussels, 12 February 2016 | Published in Energy, Economy

What if saving energy at home could be really simple, help you save money and live a healthier lifestyle? TRIME is a pan-european project that is aiming to help social housing residents benefit from this win-win combination.

Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing, is on the advisory board of a large consortsium that has set up ambitious targets for 2017:

3,875 residents across 7 TRIME pilot sites to get advice from Energy Ambassadors about reducing their energy consumption and facilitating a 9% energy saving through behaviour change.
Saving 2 GWh through residents replacing household appliances.
An additional 2 GWh saving through 200 households renting energy efficient appliances.
TRIME Partners to retrofit 1,000 homes with energy efficiency improvements saving 2.4 GWh.
200 additional social housing organisations will encourage 1,250 of their residents to change their behaviour and reduce their energy consumption by 9%.

TRIME will conduct research to understand residents’ current energy habits, including the number of appliances they own and if they know how much energy these appliances consume. The results from the research will help to inform the rest of the project and shape the messages that are delivered to customers.

Crucial will be the role of the so called "energy ambassadors" who will be empowered to save energy, monitor the energy they are saving and share the information with other residents, to help them save. The Ambassador will receive training and support so they can be effective in their role. There will be 60 energy Ambassadors across Europe sharing advice and ideas about saving energy.

As far as monitoring is concerned TRIME will measure the energy savings of residents as a result of changes in behaviour through TRIME outputs, such as energy saving advice from the Ambassadors or a change of an electrical appliance. Energy savings will be measured through the installation of Smart Meters and residents providing their own information about consumption.

Overall, 10 partners bring together both academic expertise and extensive field experience, including among others Circle Housing, LogiRep and Eigen Haard that are members of the National Housing Federation, Union Sociale pour l' Habitat and Aedes- all of which are Housing Europe member organisations- respectively.