Tackling practical & regulatory energy efficiency retrofitting challenges

Started in March 2016, ABRACADABRA is a three-year project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme aiming at developing a cost-effective, energy efficient retrofitting strategy, to which UIPI is a partner. The last International Workshop in Brussels focused on discussing opportunities but also hurdles to deep energy efficiency renovate the European building stock and, particularly also using building add-ons.

On 16 March 2017, the third ABRACADABRA International workshop took place in Brussels Brussels.

This event brought together project partners, experts and practitioners to discuss practical and regulatory challenges and opportunities for deep energy efficiency retrofitting and building add-ons, including the existence of a an overall legal framework to enable or restrict such measures, e.g. building standards, policy incentives, ownership and condominium rules, urban planning, architectural and heritage norms, etc. The discussion was enriched by case study analyses from several European countries in order to establish best practices and group discussions to prepare policy recommendations. The workshop – and the project meeting that followed – was also the occasion to take stock of technical and financial challenges deep energy retrofitting which add-ons face and to learn about the tools under preparation to propose technical solutions, establish the financial viability and prepare a business plan. The main take away from this meeting is that the technical and financial tools that are being developed are of high quality and, will take into account a large set of intrinsic aspects of building technical elements and property markets, from local climatic conditions to structural foundations of a building, from energy costs to interest rate level or from ownership type to local property value, etc. The next International ABRACADABRA workshop to take place in Brussels will be organised by UIPI for its delegates in February /March 2018. A special focus will be put on discussing finance possibilities for deep energy efficiency retrofitting with add-ons.

ABRACADABRA

‘Assistant Buildings’ addition to Retrofit, Adopt, Cure And Develop the Actual Buildings up to zeRo energy, Activating a market for deep renovation’

ABRACADABRA is a three-year long EU project funded by Horizon 2020. ABRACADABRA is based on the prior assumption that non-energy-related benefits can play a key role in the deep renovation of existing buildings. Therefore, the objective of the project is to build confidence and demonstrate the attractiveness of renovation strategy based on building volumetric Add-Ons and Renewables (“AdoRes”). In order to reduce the initial investment needed and the payback time, the project investigates ways to increase the value of a property or generate additional income through the installation of additional units to the façade, side or top of a building, the integration of renewables or the construction of an annexed building. Participating countries are Italy, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, Latvia. UIPI is one of the three EU umbrella associations involved in this project, together with the Architect Council Europe and Housing Europe, the association of public and social housing providers.

Project partners