Heating and cooling (H&C) accounts for about half of Europe’s total energy needs with 75% still dependent on fossil fuels. Thus, rapid and significant change is needed to reach the EU 2050 goals. Due to the local nature of H&C systems, action has to be taken at local level involving a variety of stakeholders. This has been recognised in recent years and activities have been started like developing best practice policies and open source analysis tools. However, (efficient) H&C planning and project development are still not commonplace in most European municipalities. The objectives of Act!onHeat are to further disseminate and take up the concept and methods for strategic H&C planning, increase its quality and to push the development and implementation of identified measures. To reach these goals Act!onHeat will implement the following activities: (i) identify the success factors of strong and efficient existing H&C plans and develop a workflow for strategic H&C planning and project development based on the existing open source tools Hotmaps and THERMOS, (ii) support at least 120 municipalities in strategic H&C planning and the development of at least 30 pre-feasibility studies for related individual projects with a mix of tailored individual and group support activities, (iii) train stakeholders who can actively contribute to decarbonisation in the use of workflows, processes and tools through a dedicated training programme, and (iv) leverage additional impact with a mix of Europe-wide roadshow events, acceleration dialogues, webinars and further promotional activities. The consortium is perfectly suited for these activities bringing together leading European experts in strategic H&C planning and policy analysis, local governments networking, capacity building and investment support. A remarkable number of letters of support show the interest of the target group as well as the well-established connections between the target group and the consortium members.

The overall aim of the project is to enable the continued development of community-owned PV by developing viable business models that address the concerns of network operators. The project will work with communities and network operators to develop approaches that will enable subsidy-free solar PV projects that have a neutral or positive impact on network management. The project will: 1. Identify and develop social enterprise models that enable increased deployment of solar PV in grid-constrained areas. 2. Carry out cost-benefit analysis and economic feasibility assessment and develop business models that enable community groups to store, utilise, aggregate and trade solar electricity within localities as well as simply exporting excess energy to the grid. 3. Empower citizens to have greater ownership over their energy supply, through removing key barriers to community PV, democratising energy and recycling profits from energy generation into host communities.

Ren-on-Bill’s overall objective is to scale up investments towards deep energy renovations (ER) of residential buildings by promoting the development and implementation of On-Bill Financing schemes, based on the cooperation between energy utilities and financial institutions. On-Bill Financing (OBF) is a method of financing ER investments that draws on utility bills as repayment vehicle. OBF has been in use for more than 30 years, and it is especially widespread in the USA and Canada, where it significantly drives the building renovation market, with over 1 billion $ investments reached by 2013. Compared to traditional loans, default rates have been found to be lower, thus making OBF a lower risk instrument for investors. In Europe, although a few attempts have been made, OBF has not yet had a significant impact on the residential energy efficiency building renovation market. In detail, the project will: - Analyse and define the residential building ER and OBF market context to enable replication of suitable OBF schemes across Europe; - Engage key stakeholders (in particular energy utilities, financial institutions, representatives of the final user and ER market side) through national stakeholder platforms; - Develop tools to structure the residential sector’s ER financing demand allowing allows utilities and financial institutions to assess ER investments based on a transparent methodology and to bundle investments accordingly; - Develop suitable utility business models for the deployment of deep energy renovation OBF schemes for residential buildings in Europe; - Implement selected OBF business models at the 3 Ren-on-Bill partner utilities through a collaboration for strategic development of pilot on-bill financing schemes; - Exploit the insights gained over the project horizon to support European-wide dissemination of knowledge on OBF schemes towards utilities, financial institutions and policy-makers.

The ultimate goal of the REFINE-project is to contribute to the supply of sufficient and attractive financing sources to energy efficiency investments through enhancement of refinancing schemes which are understood as important amplifier for market growth. Refinancing is an approach where an EES provider sells and a refinancing institution acquires receivables to be paid by an EES client. The project activities focus on the enhancement of refinanceability of energy efficiency projects, consisting of the following elements: Ensuring admissibility of refinancing schemes for energy efficiency projects; reducing transaction cost of refinancing schemes through standardisation; and facilitating risk assessment through increased transparency and use of credit guarantees. Based on the assessment of existing good practice examples, generic refinancing schemes are derived and supporting tools are developed, such as standardised contract stipulations and a rating system. The enlarged use of refinancing schemes in the energy efficiency business is stimulated by awareness raising among all relevant target groups and by capacity building improving know-how on practical implementation of refinancing schemes. The consortium covers 11 countries focussing on South and Eastern Europe since energy efficiency projects in these countries suffer most from financing barriers. The project applies a collaborative approach to all its project activities bringing together financial institutions, EES providers and facilitators.

While it’s widely accepted that energy efficiency investments are not only necessary from an environmental point of view but also convenient in terms of expected return and payback times, it’s still difficult to attract private finance that can boost the energy transition process on a large scale in the retail sector and supermarkets is just a good example of it. Of the total operating costs of a supermarket, which include purchasing merchandise, employee salaries, and more, energy can account for between 10% and 15%, which is huge for a business that operates such tight margins. SUPER-HEERO develops an innovative collaborative and scalable financial scheme based on i) Citizen financing through a crowd-funding/co-operative scheme building upon the loyalty programs in the supermarkets and implementing gamification strategies, ii) Strategic partnerships with ESCOs and utilities to support financially the energy efficiency investments on the basis of the benefits of engaging a large base of energy users through the supermarket co-operative program, iii_ Engagement of technology providers in performance-based schemes that allow them to profit from their products/technologies through innovative circular business models (e.g. leasing, Technology as a service) while making the technology more affordable and accessible for supermarket and similar business. In this way, SUPER-HEERO provides an instrument for supermarkets to access the much-needed funding that allows implementation of energy efficiency strategies and unlocks the potential of energy savings over 40%, which in turn would materialize in economic, social and environmental gains.