University of Tartu will help develop solutions for tackling energy poverty and renovating Soviet-era buildings in CEE countries

Experts from Central and Eastern Europe have cooperated in the EU-funded CEESEN-BENDER project to empower vulnerable homeowners and renters living in Soviet-era multiapartment buildings in 5 CEE countries: Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, Poland, and Romania. The project will help them through the renovation process by identifying the main obstacles and creating trustworthy support services that include homeowners, their associations, and building managers. 

The project relies on the fact that today, buildings are responsible for 40% of Europe’s total energy consumption. Therefore, EU policy has prioritised the identification of dwellings and citizens at a higher risk of energy poverty in order to develop effective strategies for building renovation. In accordance with energy efficiency’s first principle, building renovation must be prioritized when discussing the overall solution to energy poverty. Furthermore, addressing energy poverty, like energy transition in general, should be socially just and inclusive.  

In order to address these problems, consortium of partners together with University of Tartu has been funded from EU’s LIFE programme in order to implement the CEESEN-BENDER project (“Building intErventions in vulNerable Districts against Energy”), which was launched on September 1, 2023 and will last until August 31, 2026. 

Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at the University of Tartu will be responsible for coordinating the work package that aims to tackle the barriers hindering buildings-related interventions in vulnerable districts. To do that, partner countries will analyse the building renovation barriers in the regulatory framework as well as barriers of technical and economic aspects in 5 pilot countries as well as in CEE in general. In addition, a survey will be among 500 respondents from Tartu, both from renovated as well as not yet renovated buildings, providing insight regarding energy consumption, energy needs, and behaviours of energy-poor homeowners. 

Also, University of Tartu will be responsible for designing and testing a digital tool to prioritise buildings for renovations. The tool will use available digital socioeconomic data to generate rankings of buildings that are the least energy-efficient and having occupants most likely to suffer from high levels of energy poverty. Within the project, the digital tool prototype will be created and run using data collected by partners to generate scores for 150 selected buildings across 5 targeted countries. In Estonia, the test will be conducted based on Annelinn and Karlova areas in Tartu. 

The project will help the target group through the renovation process by identifying the main obstacles, and creating trustworthy support services that include homeowners, their associations, and building managers. Also, partners of the project will create a support system for homeowners, municipalities, and other large owners of multi-apartment buildings in their targeted regions to speed up the renovation process. In order to do that, the team will develop specific tools to help municipalities and large housing stock owners effectively identify energy poor households and implement schemes to reduce energy poverty.  

For the 5 pilot areas, the project partners will create at least 30 building-level roadmaps that specify the technical details for renovations, targeting at least 1500 apartments, and form a network of at least 30 energy professionals trained in consulting the target groups. Partners will train at least 3500 homeowners, landlords and building managers on legal, financial, technical and other aspects of energy renovations, and will advocate for changes of regulatory requirements and policies to lower the costs and time needed for the preparatory phase of projects. 

CEESEN-BENDER's project coordinator is Society for Sustainable Development Design from Croatia. Other partner organisations of the project include University of Tartu, Local Energy Agency Spodnje Podravje, Alba Local Energy Agency, Climate Alliance, Medjimurje Energy Agency, Mazovian Energy Agency, Tartu Regional Energy Agency, Municipality of Alba Iulia, and Central Eastern European Sustainable Energy Network (CEESEN). Associated partners of the project are Housing Cooperative “Marysin Wawerski”, EUROLAND Ltd., GP STANORAD Ltd. and the Estonian Union of Co-operative Housing Associations. 

The CEESEN-BENDER project has received funding from the European Union’s Programme for the Environment and Climate Action (LIFE 2021-2027) under grant agreement n° LIFE 101120994. The budget of the project is EUR 1.85 million, of which the amount of EU support is EUR 1.75 million. 

More information about the project can be found here: https://ceesen.org/about-ceesen/ceesen-bender/