Building renovation at district level: Lessons learned from international case studies

Renovation at district scale is a key strategy to reduce CO2 emissions by optimising the implementation of renewable energy sources and taking advantage of economy of scale. This paper focuses on analysing good practice examples on energy renovations at district scale. The paper adapts a qualitative research methodology in four phases, including...

Collaborative business model development for home energy renovations

In the EU, housing retrofit rates have to increase to about 2.5–3% of the housing stock per year to achieve policy goals. The development of new business models and collaboration of SMEs in a fragmented market is expected to result in an increase in home renovations. This study presents a way to better understand the usefulness of the...

Consultancy Centres and Pop-Ups as Local Authority Policy Instruments to Stimulate Adoption of Energy Efficiency by Homeowners

The housing sector is responsible for a more than a quarter of the total final energy consumption in the EU. As the majority (70%) of the EU-housing stock is owner occupied and largely consists of single family dwellings it is understandable that many countries focus their energy saving policies on homeowners. Complementary to the national...

Defining nearly zero-energy housing in Belgium and the Netherlands

Europe expects the housing sector to evolve towards ‘nearly zero-energy’ dwellings. Meanwhile, general terms and research, marketing and legal definitions considering such dwellings have already been introduced. Appraisal of existing definitions is now needed for further policy development. This paper examines what nearly zero-energy terms can...