GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

Actions should contribute to actively alleviating energy poverty and build on the tools, indicators and resources of existing initiatives, such as the Energy Poverty Advisory Hub or the energy poverty pillar of Covenant of Mayors.

The proposed action should cover maximum two of the following bullet points:

• Support the renovation of private multi-apartment buildings with energy poor residents, with a special focus on reinforcing and adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners or tenants associations, tackling related regulatory framework barriers (e.g. property and/or rental laws), split incentives (where relevant), and setting up and coordinating relevant support services. The renovation actions supported should take into account the ability of residents to remain in their homes to avoid gentrification.
• Support national authorities in their obligation to empower and protect energy poor households by implementing the relevant provisions of the EED (recast).This support should help analyse the national policy mix, and combine and pull the different energy poverty-related provisions together to allow for the effective and coherent application of measures at the national level. In doing so, the action should also support relevant authorities to evaluate the impact of different implementation options, taking into account the specific national needs and context on energy poverty.
• Actions should facilitate the delivery of capacity-building for national, regional and/or local authorities and societal intermediaries, and support these actors in setting up long-term, cross-sectoral coordination structures to tackle energy poverty. Such structures could include setting up national energy poverty observatories. The actors involved are expected to represent all relevant sectors (e.g. energy, social, health, and housing) to ensure a holistic participatory approach to the alleviation of energy poverty in the long term and to improve social cohesion. This capacity-building should ultimately lead to the relevant actors co-designing and rolling out integrated interventions and support schemes for the benefit of energy poor households; however, it is not expected that such interventions or support schemes are delivered as part of the action.
• Support obligated parties in setting up and testing schemes for energy efficiency improvement measures for the benefit of people affected by energy poverty, vulnerable customers, people in low-income households and, where applicable, people living in social housing under the energy efficiency obligation schemes of the EED (recast), including, where applicable, working together with local authorities or municipalities, and/or relevant networks such as the Covenant of Mayors. It is expected that obligated parties, in particular, are either directly involved or their support is clearly demonstrated in the proposal.

The proposed actions should take into account multiple benefits from the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy measures for the different energy poor target groups, such as improved health, comfort, air quality, better social inclusion etc. Specific attention could be paid to particular groups which are more at risk of being affected by energy poverty or more susceptible to the adverse impacts of energy poverty, taking into account gender, where relevant.

The proposed actions should involve local authorities and intermediaries such as consumer or social organisations, energy companies, healthcare providers, homeowners or tenants associations, energy communities, as relevant.

Proposals should justify the need for the development of any tools, databases or platforms, considering their added value compared to existing ones. If included, applicants should carefully consider how to make them available to facilitate their reuse by other initiatives.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to €1.75 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.