Difference between revisions of "4. Objectives and Impacts"

Latest revision as of 02:04, 12 May 2011

Rinnovate Index

This section should be a maximum of 2 pages - excluding the tables. Be focused and keep your objectives to a manageable and meaningful number; not more than 3 to 5 objectives at each level (i.e. 6 – 10 objectives in total).

Specific objectives (during the action)[edit]

• What are you trying to achieve during the life-time of your action, i.e. which change in the market and which effects do you seek to achieve on your target population/market etc.?

The background of RINNOVATE is the untapped potential to save energy in buildings and to take the built environment near to zero energy goal. It is recognized that to obtain substantial progresses in implementing the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive toward Energy 2020 targets requires more investments and large-scale agreements among major market actors. But sub-optimal renovations “lock in” large missed savings potential: avoiding it is essential. The primary way is deep renovation. Still a large amount of small and incremental renovations and maintenance works remain: a viable solution is to help setting a frame in which all renovation and maintenance expenditure regarding a building or dwelling converge in a plan towards nearly zero energy goals. Setting nearly Zero Energy Building in Renovation as a standard Approach (ZEBRA) is the core of RINNOVATE.

The following specific objectives are essential to carry out this overarching scheme. They correspond to an enabling phase, a subsequent phase of attraction and community development and a propagation phase aiming at starting a snowball effect using memes.

The first specific objective is to turn into common practice that each building should integrate all renovation and maintenance expenditures into a plan to achieve nearly zero energy building. To achieve this objective a change of mind must occur across the whole value chain, involving owners, achitects, engineers and energy consultants, suppliers and financing services. And for a change of mind to occur people must have a place to collaborate, elaborate and deliberate on making nearly Zero Energy Building in Renovation a standard Approach (ZEBRA) RINNOVATE implements a catalyst environment to gather and keep together this varied ensemble thanks to an attractive, useful knowledge hub connecting the domains of building, construction and renovation, energy saving, renewable energy sources, energy performance benchmarking anf certification, procurement, financing schemes linked to energy performance. A key feature is the interface paradigm "ask by example, show by example, find by example" that links real world issue to rigorous ontological structures.

The second objective is to create a community of owners, renovation experts, energy consultants and suppliers that has a strong professional and economic interest to promote and spread the use of readily available solutions in the frame of ZEBRA. Solutions may include off-the-shelf products for RES and EE technologies, ESCO/EPC financing solutions, or design expertise to plot and implement integrated renovation and maintenance strategies. In fact to bring about the necessary shift in professional practice it is essential to expose as much members as possible from demand and supply side to the opportunity of integration, in which public procurement play an important role. A core community of 300 public and private building owners, builders, architects and engineers, energy consultants and energy performance certification bodies, ESCO and EPSC, will elaborate ZEBRA (nearly Zero Energy Building in Renovation as a standard Approach) further. They will contribute to improve the knowledge hub with their cases, products, experiences. This community will take the lead of RINNOVATE, elaborating an acccepted protocol for auditing energy performance baseline, establishing credible nearly zero energy targets, designing viable solutions to integrate EE and RES in renovation and maintenance, drawing EPC and ESCO financing schemes.

The third objective is to raise confidence in energy efficiency investments demonstrating how to transform every building renovation project in a profitable energy investment for all parties: owners, billpayers, builders, suppliers, consultants, and present and future citizens. The community of RINNOVATE will actually put the protocol at work examining 240 cases and preparing 60 ZEBRA-like integrated plans. This first showcase will also act as a collection of representative instances and help lower diffidence especially among homeowners, tenants and owners of few buildings. It will be apparent that there is a visible community of owners, renovation experts and suppliers who integrate renovation and maintenance strategies to achieve substantial, rewarding progress toward nearly zero energy buildings. More than 2000 owners, professionals and suppliers are expected to enter in contact and examine these examples, possibly changing their perspective and behaviour about return on renovation investments.

The last objective corresponds to the replication and evolution phase, which put in practice the basic mechanisms for sustainability after the subventioned period. This specific objective is to inoculate the concepts elaborated by the community, starting from ZEBRA (nearly Zero Energy Building in Renovation as a standard Approach) deeply in the social web and the new mobile communities, but also among more traditional homeowners groups. The purpose is to help changing the imaginary and behaviour of trading and professional communities and public authorities and change likewise the imaginary and behaviour of homeowners, tenants and citizens. This objective will be pursued by contributing to other communities of practice, groups of interests, thematic waves. The paradigm is that RINNOVATE will not become more visible and influential than Wikipedia (at least in the short time), hence members of the RINNOVATE community will provide Wikipedia with a project about Near Zero Energy Building and renovation. Likewise connections with other professional communities will ensure that new ideas and solutions circulate endlessly. Thanks to this phase the impact and influence of RINNOVATE will continue and extend further in time and reference.

• Which contribution will this action make to EU policies and priorities, targets and legislation?

RINNOVATE will make contributions within the NZEB/renovation focus and outside. Though if not an explicit goal, it is likely that ZEBRA may be embedded in standard voluntary agreements, contracts and procurement guidelines. Likewise the elaboration of guidelines for integrating EE/RES improvements in the renovation design and maintenance planning may possibly become common practice among professionals. Outside the scope of energy and environmental policies, RINNOVATE contributes to the assimilation the INSPIRE directive (to create a EU spatial data infrastructure) and IPO (Interoperability Strategy and Framework for public services) guidelines.

Strategic objectives (for the longer term - to 2020)[edit]

Remember that your action must include activities to ensure its sustainability and to have an impact after the IEE funding ends.

• what are your expectations from your action untill the year 2020 in view of EU targets.Remember that your action must include activities to ensure its sustainability and to have an impact after the IEE funding ends

RINNOVATE will contribute to speed-up the energy-efficiency renovation rate, orientating it toward nearly zero energy goals in public and private buildings. The process of making renovation investments integrate EE/RES measures to converge towards nearly zero energy goals will start during RINNOVATE project execution, but will unfold through the following years. In fact its effects will become evident when more and more integrated plans toward NZE will combine with ESCO/EPC in a "snowball effect".

This links to the second strategic objective of RINNOVATE, which is to foster a wider use of ESCO services and the adoption of a broader, more pervasive concept of ESCO and ESCO-like operations relying on energy performance certifications.

RINNOVATE partner made a projection of how influential the project may be until 2020, peaking in 2015-2016, then slowing down. In this scenario cumulative investment triggered as part of integrated renovation plan towards nearly zero energy building goals would be around 150 million euro, 60% of which based on EPC or ESCO financing model measured with a certified energy performance scheme.

RINNOVATE figures come from the following key assumptions/methods. The number of 1200 cases that constitute the initial kernel of the knowledge hub come from the capacity of the project team to analyze each case and place the minimum data set within the ontology frame (cases are collected automatically from the web; a preliminary screening returned about 20000 cards). The number of hits and visitors comes from comparative analyses on site traffic and SEO services (that RINOVATE will use). Figures about the investment triggered elaborate on concentrating 5 years of average sub-optimal renovation (2000€/y) into a 20000€ ESCO/EPC that rises energy savings to minimum cost optimal (+40% in performance improvement), improving overall savings by 5000KWh/y per average case (of which 30% RES), reducing 210 tCO2/y per average case. During the project lifetime we expect to trigger 400 average case, of which 60 within the project pilot activities and the other influenced. The work and influence of the community should continue and extend growing an average 30% per year until 2017, then slow down. The total number of ZEBRA-like cases triggered directly and by influence would be about 7500 to reach 150 million euro mobilized. Base data have been obtained combining statistical data (EUROSTAT, ODYSSEE, PRIMES, ERABUILD) with direct experience of partners.

Secondly, you need to assess the expected impact of your action based on a bottom-up approach. Use assumptions which are best fitted to the specific environment that you will be addressing - and building on your specific and strategic objectives. Illustrate your assumptions and extrapolations e.g. per country / region / partner as appropriate.

In order to assess this expected impact it is important to understand the relation between inputs; activities; outputs; outcomes / impacts; performance indicators and targets associated with your action.

• Inputs are the resources required to deliver your action. These are set out in Part C of your proposal.
• Activities are the tasks or processes undertaken. These are set out in form of a number of work packages in Section 7 'Work Programme' of your proposal.
• Outputs are the direct products and services that your action will deliver. They include material deliverables (e.g. brochures, reports, CD ROM) as well as services provided (e.g. hours of training, number of people taught). However, usually they say very little about the actual effect of the action or benefits to your target audience.
• Outcomes are identifiable changes which demonstrate the extent to which the activities have an effect on their intended target group. These changes can be expressed in terms of:
  • Enabling policies & strategies
  • Market transformation
  • Changing behaviour
  • Access to capital
  • Development of skills
• These outcomes should result in specific energy-related impacts within the duration of the action, i.e. sustainable energy investments triggered, higher share of renewable energies, primary energy savings, and reduction of green house gas emission, thus contributing to the EU 2020 targets.
• Long term outcomes and specific energy-related impacts for which you must provide an extrapolation up to 2020. Take account of market potential and trends, the triggering effect of your promotion and dissemination activities, and the 'snow-ball effect'. Your action should at least induce positive developments towards the strategic objectives – even if fully achieving them will usually also depend on other factors. You must explain your assumptions for your extrapolation, estimated according to a credible baseline.
• Performance indicators should be used to determine the success of your action in reaching its objectives. Describe these performance indicators in the tables below and quantify them – with targets - to measure your outcomes and specific energy-related impacts. The performance Indicators should be SMART (specific, measureable, achievable, relevant and time-bound)

Specific Objectives, Key Outputs and Outcomes within the duration of the action:[edit]

Strategic Objectives and Long-term outcomes beyond the duration of the action until 2020:

IEE Common performance indicators:[edit]

You are required to summarise the expected specific energy-related impact of your action, within its duration and by 2020 using a set of performance indicators, which will be common to all IEE actions.

The provided figures should be consistent with the aim of the action, i.e. if it triggers investment for renewable energy and energy saving, both rows should be filled in. On the contrary, if the proposed action results solely in the production of energy from renewable sources, the row related to primary energy savings should be left blank.

Explain in a concise, yet robust, manner your baseline, benchmarks and assumptions for the extrapolation:

• baseline information and/or benchmarks should be provided i.e. what would be the primary energy consumption and greenhouse gases emissions in the targeted domains if your action

didn't take place?

• justification should be provided for all assumptions used, preferably substantiated making reference to relevant studies;

• try to use only one methodology: not different methodologies for each partner, region or country (the extrapolation should preferably be prepared by one partner);

• your extrapolation must relate to this action only, the impact of other initiatives should not be taken into account (do not provide sector related, national, or European targets);

• data should only be in the requested units i.e. tonnes of oil equivalent per year (toe/year) for primary energy savings and Renewable Energy produced and tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year (t CO2e/year) for greenhouse gas emissions savings. If needed the IEA energy unit converter can be used to do the necessary conversions (http://www.iea.org/stats/unit.asp).