Alleviating household energy poverty in Europe

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

Focus on summer energy poverty alleviation and/or actions focusing on geographic areas with less developed energy poverty alleviation measures and frameworks.

Proposals must cover only one of the two scopes (A or B), specifying the chosen scope in the proposal introduction.

Scope A: Support national, regional and/or local authorities and relevant stakeholders in setting up formalised, long-term, cross-sectoral coordination structures to tackle energy poverty.

Scope A: Foster cross-departmental and cross-sectoral collaboration across national, regional, and/or local government structures, and involve relevant public bodies and private/public stakeholders, such as civil society organisations, healthcare providers, economic operators or academia.

Scope A: Outline the organisational structure (including the engagement strategy for participating actors), main methods of operation and key objectives (e.g. development of definitions, criteria, or indicators, data collection, advice on support methods or schemes to reduce energy poverty, etc).

Scope A: Identify the specific local/regional/national challenges or gaps the coordination structure(s) aim to address.

Scope A: Where similar coordination structures already exist or are already in development, clearly demonstrate the need for, and added value of, any new coordination structures and demonstrate the support of, or existing cooperation with, the existing structure(s).

Scope A: Include the delivery of tailored capacity-building activities for the specific national, regional and/or local authorities and stakeholder organisations involved in the coordination structures.

Scope A: Ensure capacity-building consists of structured, in-depth training tailored to the specific needs and languages of the coordination structure members, ensuring improved skills and capacity in the long term.

Scope A: Ensure the composition of the coordination structures represents all relevant sectors, including energy, social, health and housing sectors, to ensure a holistic participatory approach to the alleviation of energy poverty in the long term.

Scope A: Identify the main public authorities involved in the coordination structure(s) in the proposal.

Scope A: Demonstrate concrete commitment and involvement of public authorities and stakeholders (e.g., consumer or social organisations, the housing sector, energy companies, or healthcare providers) through direct involvement or tailored letters of support at executive decision-making level.

Scope A: Clarify whether the proposed coordination structures address the national, local and/or regional level, justifying the need if several governance levels are addressed.

Scope A: Set out a convincing plan to ensure long-term sustainability of the coordination structures beyond project duration, including the expected hosting entities.

Scope B: Support the energy renovation of residential multi-apartment buildings in spatially related vulnerable districts/neighbourhoods with predominantly energy poor inhabitants.

Scope B: Aim to reduce and optimise heating and cooling needs and improve the health and comfort of energy poor residents.

Scope B: Concretely support the renovation of multi-apartment buildings by implementing strategies and approaches, which may include reinforcing and/or adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners or tenants associations, tackling related regulatory barriers, defining appropriate financing strategies for the specific target group, addressing split incentives, and setting up and/or coordinating relevant support or advisory services.

Scope B: Where support/advisory services are already in place, demonstrate how proposals build on them, rather than establish new services.

Scope B: Consider both winter and summer energy poverty and integrate building-level measures with community or neighbourhood-level approaches, where appropriate (e.g., integration of sustainable active cooling solutions with passive cooling measures, nature-based solutions, urban greening, or social leasing schemes).

Scope B: Demonstrate affordability of proposed measures for energy poor residents in terms of both upfront and longer-term costs.

Scope B: Ensure renovation actions allow residents to remain in their homes after works, thereby avoiding so-called renovictions.

Scope B: Demonstrate concrete commitment and involvement of homeowners or tenant associations and housing organisations, in particular, in addition to other relevant actors (e.g., financial institutions) through direct involvement or tailored letters of support.

For both Scope A and Scope B: Take into account multiple benefits from energy efficiency and renewable energy for different energy poor target groups, such as improved health, comfort, air quality, better social inclusion etc.

For both Scope A and Scope B: Pay specific attention 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.

For both Scope A and Scope B: Do not develop new IT tools, databases or platforms, unless their added value compared to existing ones is justified, and their potential scale-up beyond the project is convincingly addressed.

Proposals must be submitted by at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 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.