Editing Rinnovate Proposal Abstract

''RINNOVATE! - Embedding integrated energy performance specifications and design in building renovation'' is going to be submitted for IEE funding as an Integrated Initiative for Energy efficiency and renewable energy in buildings (CIP-IEE-2011.4.4 Energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RES) in buildings).

RINNOVATE is about transforming every building renovation project in a profitable energy investment for all parties: owners, billpayers, builders, suppliers, consultants, present and future citizens.

The overall goal of RINNOVATE is to significantly contribute to trigger a market change, making energy performance evaluation commonplace when selecting and awarding renovation projects in public and private, commercial and residential buildings.

Candidate partners of RINNOVATE are local authorities (municipalities of A Coruña, ES and Ancona, IT), academic bodies (University of Ancona, IT and Instituto de Engenharia Mecânica e Gestão Industrial, PT), industry and trade associations (CNA Marche, IT, CCIRO, RO, CCIU, HU), sectoral consultant firms (Applus+, ITG, ES and Trecon, IT). Managenergy Romania is expected to join the consortium which is to be led by ITG (Instituto Tecnológico de Galicia, ES).

Partners share the view that among principal barriers to energy-performing renovations are:

* solutions, products, tools and expertise are available, but not connected, not integrated, not easy to understand and difficult to search and have priced;
* insufficient diffusion/use of appropriate investment calculation that influence economic reasons, namely economic benefits, that play a main role in investment decisions of private owners;
* short-term orientation (not looking any further ahead than five years at most); short-sighted behaviour affects both demand and supply side, owners and suppliers and commercial operators;
* perception that the elaboration of integrated renovation specifications/terms of reference is difficult because it needs initiate cooperation processes;
* difficulty to identify, quantify and compare the impact of the range of materials, technologies and solutions that can be used to improve energy efficiency because of the great diversity of building form, size, use, location. 

In order to tackle these barriers RINNOVATE partners work on three sides:

* demand side (owners, public and private)
* supply side (material, component and service suppliers)
* renovation consultants, designers, practitioners (in private and public sectors)

For achieving its results RINNOVATE grounds on existing products, solutions, project results, networks, knowledge base and will put in practice the following actions:

* gather a community of energy experts around the issue of the integration of energy measures in the specification and design of renovation works; this community will be requested to comply with a professional/ethical code of conduct. RINNOVATE will give to this community a place and tools (a 'competence kiosk') for training, exchanging knowledge, publicising achievements, and to get in touch with potential customers and suppliers.
* Create a 'competence kiosk' for owners that need commit renovation works. The competence kiosk for owners will be accessible following the RINNOVATE claim "lead by example, search by example". It will address public owners, private owners of buildings and homeowners. The competence kiosk will contain procurement guidelines, return on investment calculators, terms of reference examples, service level agreements, legal cases, training materials, etc. and pointers to experts, suppliers and service undertakings belonging to the RINNOVATE community that operate in the field. It will also be a site for publicising tenders, future renovation works and calling for quotations and proposals.
* Create a 'competence kiosk' for suppliers operating or willing to operate in energy-performing renovation works. The competence kiosk for suppliers will be accessible following the RINNOVATE claim "lead by example, search by example". It will be a showcase for existing solutions and expertise. A standardised set of minimum information will be requested for publishing; which will help benchmarking energy performances and integration options of different solutions. Pointers to experts and fields of implementation, will connect to the other sections.
* Promote the project among its actors and users. RINNOVATE will contact existing networks, projects, communities dealing with EE/RUE and RES/RET in order to promote cross linking and to identify and enroll actors (consultants/experts, owners, suppliers) that are involved/interested in building renovation energy issues. On the other side RINNOVATE will address users (consultants/experts, owners, suppliers) in order to promote the exploitation of RINNOVATE knowledge base, services, information. Specific promotional efforts will be made to foster the propagation of RINNOVATE across European regions, following already existing flows (e.g. Italy-Romania and Italy-Hungary components and construction supplies). Key messages will be: 'Make every building renovation a profitable ESCO', 'Innovation is bringing an integrated view of energy performance into renovation', 'Clever ones get the most out of energy-smart renovations', 'Lead by example, search by example'.
* Participate in common dissemination activities, networking with other relevant projects under EACI coordination for wider diffusion of results.

Partners who are local bodies will contribute and pilot the field of planning and public procurement guidance, training of officers.

Academic partners will structure the selection criteria for inclusion of tools, data, cases, computational algorithms and maintain an overview of scientific and technological soundness and credibility of RINNOVATE services. 

Consultancies will act as promoters towards their field of influence: for ITG professional bodies in Galicia; for Trecon and Applus public and private owners of buildings.

Trade associations will act as promoters towards their associates and reference markets (both on demand and supply side).

The overall expected outcome of RINNOVATE is to increase the number of renovation projects (in Galicia, ES, Marche, IT, Oporto, PT, Romania and Hungary) that incorporate energy-performance solutions since early specification/design stage, resulting in improved energy efficiency of both major and small renovations of public and private, commercial and residential buildings. Specific outputs will include:

* a living community of practice gathering several hundreds of energy professionals, consultants and practictioners with specific interest in energy-performing building renovations (both major and small-renovations, public and private);
* - a web service (three competence kiosks) that brings together proven diagnostics, requirements elicitation and energy/investment calculations and procurement/specification guidance/samples along with a showcase of products, components, solutions, easy to search, reliable in terms of comparisons and integrations; the kiosks will be searchable with a search-by-example engine and online training material and courses with interfaces in EN, ES, HU, IT, PT, RO;
* - 8 technical workshops (3 in Spain, 2 in Italy, 1 in RO, 1 in HU, 1 in PT) and 12 communication events (for the promotion and enrollment of actors) including one final conference;
* documentation for the dissemination of result dissemination.

The RINNOVATE project has been planned for a three years (36 months) duration with a provisional budget is in the order of EUR 2 million, of which about 22% allocated to the coordinating partner (ITG).

ITG is a private not-for-ptofit Foundacion established in 1991 by professional associations (construction architects and engineers, industrial emgineers and others) and the Galician Universities. ITG is the Spanish reference point for BREEAM, the Environmental Assessment Method for Buildings.

Contacts for the RINNOVATE project idea:Paolo Santinello (p.santinello@klink.it), Juan Sobreira Seoane (jsobreira@itg.es)