19.11.2024
1st Consortium Meeting of Renov-AID: Paving the Way to Comprehensive Energy Renovations
On November 5 and 6, 2024, the first consortium meeting of the Renov-AID project, co-financed by the LIFE program, took place in Velenje. The partners met to establish clear action plans for the development of comprehensive housing renovation services by implementing the ‘one-stop shop’ (OSS) concept in Slovenia and to demonstrate such integrated services for citizen renovation pathways in Ljubljana, Kranj, and Velenje.
Despite various initiatives in recent years to increase the number of comprehensive housing renovations across Slovenia, the number of energy renovations remains insufficient to meet both national and European targets that contribute to mitigating climate change. The Renov-AID project aims to integrate diverse knowledge, tools, and services to enable homeowners to undertake a simpler, more efficient, and holistic renovation process. A key question posed by the partners is how to reduce the barriers that currently prevent homeowners from completing home renovations.
The first day of the meeting focused on improving the work plan for the next six months, strengthening relationships among the partners, and agreeing on the project’s internal management system. It concluded with an interactive workshop on the energy transition in the Savinja-Šalek region, where the partners discussed challenges such as the low rate of energy renovations (only 10% of the building stock) and high heat consumption per capita in Velenje, one of the project’s pilot cities.
The second day centered on analyzing the demand and supply in the field of renovations and understanding the renovation pathways in the pilot cities. Key topics discussed included:
- Understanding the needs and challenges of homeowners – clearly defining the renovation pathway is crucial.
- Independence of OSS services – promoting quality rather than specific providers.
- Complexity of decision-making – starting on a smaller scale and gradually expanding.
- Development of a monitoring and evaluation system for individual services.
- Stakeholder activation – securing political support at local and national levels.
The meeting of the EU LIFE project, consisting solely of Slovenian partners, provided a deeper understanding of the needs and opportunities in the pilot cities while also setting a clear direction for further work on establishing a network of OSS in various Slovenian municipalities. Over the next three years, Renov-AID aims to significantly enhance the renovation experience for Slovenian citizens with its pragmatic vision based on the ‘one-stop shop’ concept.
IRI UL is the coordinator of this project and leads the work package responsible for implementing the concept in the pilot cities (Ljubljana, Kranj, and Velenje) as well as the work package responsible for dissemination.
