Happen project

 

 

HAPPEN - Holistic APproach and Platform for the deep renovation of the Med residential built ENvironment

H2020-EE-11-2016-2017

 

The project HAPPEN - Holistic AProach and Platform for the deep renovation of the med residential built Environment pursues the development and activation of a holistic, transparent and adaptive approach to deep and beyond (= towards nZEB) retrofitting, specifically tailored for the Med space and named MedZEB. Such an approach mainly targets the residential sector (private and public), and encompasses the development of an ICT platform, intended as main market vector for overcoming the barriers that hamper the increase of renovation rate in EU. The development of retrofitting market is facing difficulties throughout Europe, but these difficulties assume in the Med space specific characteristics, due to environmental and climatic factors, to the structure of the ownership and of the built stock, to peculiar social and economical conditions, and to the consequences of the economical crisis, which struck EU Med countries with a higher impact than the others. Given this framework, it is necessary to set up a strategy that goes beyond the mere physical needs of the buildings and the technological aspects, for integrating social, entrepreneurial, financial, technical, regulative and environmental aspects, as means to deal successfully with the complexity of the Med living spheres and the behaviours of their communities. To this extent, the MedZeb approach will pursue the following general objectives:

  • reconnecting the fragmented value chain in the retrofitting market;
  • rebuilding a framework of trust around the deep and beyond retrofitting market;
  • increasing the overall convenience and appeal of the retrofitting interventions.

Such GOs cannot be reached through single renovation projects, as costs would be too high: a urgent need is felt for carrying out a dedicated background work based on the available state-of-the-art knowledge (TRL9), and aimed to produce an integrated set of solutions optimized for the Med space, and a dedicated decision support process.
The application of such outcomes will allow eventually to easily develop cost-effective tailored retrofitting strategies for different case studies; to this extent, the following specific objectives will be pursued:

  • To empower the key actors of the retrofitting value chain, in order to enable the market uptake of deep retrofitting interventions, through dedicated actions of awareness, engagement, behavioral upgrade and capacity building (WP2); by these means a higher degree of pro-activity from end users and investors will be pursued, as well as a stronger do-it-yourself and self-learning approach. To this extent, the Living Labs methodology will be applied (see WP2&6), also by referring to the MML approach, and training materials will be produced in all the languages of the consortium (covering all EU Med countries).
  • To standardize the interventions and their related quality control measures in order to trigger feasibility, replicability and comparability of the interventions, thus creating advantages in terms of scale economy, and reaching the highest added value for the end users (WP3&4); in particular, this will be done by:
      • defining cost-optimal one-stop-shop packages of solutions tailored for the Med space, based on state-of-the-art BAT, and related to the main target buildings addressed by the project;
      • integrating non technological aspects such as the well-being of lived-in spaces as well as the overall environmental sustainability of the interventions, and the quality of life at neighborhood/district level;
      • individuating innovative financial solutions for overcoming detected financial gaps&lacks as well as for smoothing multi-stakeholders dynamics typical of the Med space;
      • developing a staged retrofitting strategy, based on the elaboration of retrofitting roadmaps for individual buildings, as an alternative to the current one-step approach.
  • To create an assisted digital marketplace for the deep and beyond retrofitting (D&BR) of buildings, where demand and offer shall meet in a transparent, holistic and adaptive framework; this objective will be reached by developing the HAPPEN platform (WP5), purposed to become the reference portal at EU level for the D&BR market in the Med space. This objective comprises the formation, at the end of the project, of the HAPPEN Coordination Group (HCG), which will manage the platform after the project finalization.
  • To test and validate the project outputs by carrying out Pilot Actions (PAs) in all country partners (WP6), with special reference to three Frontrunner (FPs) and six Thematic/Perspective (T/PP) Pilot actions, with the aim to foster the large scale exploitation of the project results across the Med space.
  • To suggest new regulatory approaches, in order to stimulate high political level discussions on the necessity of creating purpose frameworks for the Med areas (WP4); to this extent, retrofitting papers will be produced and disseminated, and a voluntary certification scheme (VCS) will be introduced, connected to a shared MedZEB Protocol (MZP; see art. 7 EPBD recast).

Fulfilling these SOs will result in a significant reduction of the gap between design and actual energy performance of buildings, triggering the enhancement of trust towards the retrofitting market. On this basis, it will be possible to turn the MedZEB approach into a real, ambitious and effective Med-wide retrofitting program, to be built after the project finalization on the following grounding outputs: the HAPPEN ICT platform; the MedZEB protocol, and annexed VCS; the MedZEB Coordination Group; the local supply&value chains, incubated during the Living Labs in the Pilots. These elements will lay the basis for a relentless uptake of D&BR market in the Med space; this is the way to make it HAPPEN!

 

Project Start: April 2018

Total budget: 2.108.827,50€

 

Partners
Project Coordinator: CNR (ITC)

CERTIMAC SOC. CONS. A R. L., Harley & Dikkinson Finance srl, UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA, INSTITUTO VALENCIANO DE LA EDIFICACION, ENTIDAD DE INFRAESTRUCTURAS DE LA GENERALITAT, Agence des Villes et Territoires Méditerranéens Durables, ETABLISSEMENT PUBLIC D'AMENAGEMENT EUROMEDITERRANEE (EPAEM), ETHNIKO KAI KAPODISTRIAKO PANEPISTIMIO ATHINON, ENERGEIAKO GRAFEIO AIGAIOY, GRADBENI INSTITUT ZRMK DOO, IRENA-Istarska Regionalna Energetska Agencija za energetske djelatnosti d.o.o., ENERGEIAKO GRAFEIO KYPRION POLITON (CYPRUS ENERGY AGENCY)