Energy Exploitation and Performance Contracting for Low Income and Social Housing

The European project ECOLISH promotes energy effi ciency in existing residential buildings with the focus on freehold fl ats of persons with low income and social housings. The buildings are charac-terised by high energy use, due to poor thermal insulation and poor energy effi ciency of heating installations, poor thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Major barrier is the lack of fi nancial means to invest in improvements. Private organised ener-gy exploitation and energy performance contract-ing are potential solutions for this problem.

Within the project energy exploitation and per-formance contracting is organised, elaborated and evaluated on four pilot locations:

Heerlen in the Netherlands

Ogre in Latvia

Pécsvárad in Hungary

Pieria in Greece

The pilots include fi nance schemes, energy and building technical boundary conditions, juridical, fi nancial and social aspects. General guidelines and conditions will be given on how to come to energy exploitation companies with residents and con-cerned parties as shareholder and energy perform-ance contracting including a model contract.

This project is part-fi nanced by the European Union. The views expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect the views of the European Commission.

The ECOLISH consortium is composed by expert organisa-tions in the four pilot locations.

Coordinator:Cauberg-Huygen R. I. (Netherlands)

Essent Energiediensten (Netherlands)

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece)

Riga Technical University of PécsUniversity (Latvia) (Hungary)

Techem Greece

Federation of European Heating and Air-Conditioning Associations

Climate Alliance of European Citieswith Indigenous Rainforest Peoples

Heerlen (Netherlands) Ogre (Latvia)

Pécsvárad (Hungary) Pieriki Anaptixiaki S.A. (Greece)

Heerlen in the Netherlands

The quarter Vrieheide is situated in the north-east of Heer-len. The district has a total area of 15 hectares and contains 1045 houses. Most of the families have a low income and half of them are unemployed. A cluster of 837 single family dwellings, built in 1960, has the biggest problems with energy consumption and indoor environment. 75 percent of the dwellings are owned by residents, the remaining by a private property investment company.

Ogre in Latvia

An area with ten houses was selected for the project. Alto-gether the blocks contain 238 apartments with 520 inhabit-ants. 83 of them are children and the income of the residents is below average. The people own the fl ats but a municipal agency is still responsible for maintenance services. Accord-ing to the results of a survey the residents criticise the cost and the condition of the heating, the insulation and condition of the roofs, the situation in the staircases, and - as highest naming - the missing of parking places.

ObjectivesEnergy saving and CO2 reduction in residential build-ings in EU has the highest potential of all sectors and a wide variety of technologies is available. But promotion of energy effi ciency faces also a number of barriers. Especially people with low incomes who own their apartments and building societies with social housings have to deal with fi nancial limitations and barriers. ECOLISH aims for an integral technical and fi nancial solution that allows the improvement of this specifi c building stock.

Description of the workPilot projects are organised on four locations in Europe (Netherlands, Latvia, Greece and Hungary), each representing a specifi c situation (building type, ownership and climate). For each location an energy exploitation company with different parties involved (including residents) as shareholders will be formed.

Expected resultsA detailed implementation plan for the addressed target groups as municipalities, housing corporations, real estate developers and utilities will be develo-ped. Extended activities around energy exploitation and performance contracting will be promoted. Overall it should induce CO2 reductions of 10,000 tonnes per year in the pilot locations.

www.ecolish.comContact addressCauberg-Huygen Consulting Engineers BVPeter Op ’t VeldPO Box 480, NL-6200 AL MaastrichtPhone +31-43-3467842Fax +31-43-3476347p.optveld@chri.nl

Pécsvárad in Hungary

Not only energy performance contracting for apartment houses is taken into account, but also the possibility to include a number of other buildings as municipal offi ce building or cultural centre, residential home for the elderly, school or kindergarten. The different buildings in combination with habitation give an opportunity for the exposure of a local private owned energy exploitation company with participation of all local shareholders.

Pieria in Greece

The 26 buildings under examination were erected in two different periods in 1974/1977 and in 1978/1981 in an area of around 8 hectares. 249 apartments are situated in 24 houses and 10 shops in the other 2 houses. The houses are insuffi ciently insulated and most apartments still have the original wooden window frames. The central heating systems vary in every building and don’t have a joint management for the installations. The resi-dents own their apartments and have a low income.