OneClickRENO | Certimac

Project

OneClickRENO is a 36-month Project co-funded by the European Commission within the LIFE-CET (Clean Energy Transition) 2021-2027 program, which is aimed at facilitating the transition towards an energy-efficient, renewable energy-based, climate-neutral and resilient economy.

One of the most ambitious targets of the 2050 EU climate-neutrality is the decarbonisation of buildings, which results in the drastic reduction of the energy needs of the building stock. To this end, the EU Member States need to boost both the rate and the depth of building renovation. Existing buildings represent most of the building stock of the future – around 90% of today’s buildings will still be standing in 2050 - and a vast majority were built before 2001. Therefore, deep renovation is the only way to decarbonize the existing building stock by 2050.

The OneClick RENO (OCR) Project aims to contribute to the transition towards a zero-emission building stock and to accelerate the rate and depth of building renovations in the EU by making the benefits of deep renovations visible and tangible through Building Renovation Passports (BRPs). The BRP is an instrument that fosters cost-effective renovation through a long-term staged renovation roadmap for a specific building, helping owners and investors plan the best timing and scope for interventions. In addition, “staged renovation” represents an effective solution to address the issue of high upfront costs and hassle for inhabitants that may occur when renovating ‘in one go’.

Objectives

Homeowners will be provided with automated, relatable, and easy-to-understand BRPs through simple (one-click) web tools. Its’ coverage and reliability are based on the official schemas, data sources, and user-contributed data, from which the theoretical renovation itineraries are offered. The ones selected by users will help, in time, policymakers design and follow-up policies; and energy renovation professionals in charge of EPBD application, who will receive an already compliant BRP to adapt it and ensure that it fulfills building and/or user potential specificities, delivering to their customers a real renovation plan through the same web tool.

This will be done through a Geographical Information System (GIS) web portal that will allow different energy performance contracts (EPCs), energy calculators and energy renovation design tools to access BRP generation according to building location and user profile.

The OCR Specific Objectives (SOs) are the following:

Demonstrating the simplified automated BRP generation concept in the diverse ecosystems throughout the EU, thus improving the representativeness of BRPs. To this end, a significant number of existing tools will be equipped with/ connected to the OCR-BRP generator in demonstration environments representing the different EU contexts.

Providing a quick response for calculation and assessment by making a large number of pre-calculated/estimated BRPs available, thus ensuring instant delivery of relevant results

Raising awareness by presenting the demo tools equipped with archetype BRPs to local stakeholders and general public so as to ensure them a staged renovation scenario on a large scale, thus effectively raising awareness on the benefits of renovation

Supporting the decision-making process through OCR automated BRPs. They will be essential for professionals to easily design a significant number of real BRPs that take into account specific building features and owners’ needs.

Effectively promoting deep renovation through funding and incentives aligned with the BRP stages, thus facilitating the implementation of suitable renovation interventions in each context, and enabling the follow-up and impact assessment for policy and decision makers.

Sharing the OCR tools. The OCR tools offer estimated information, which in turn is checked by professionals while designing the real BRPs. Getting a significant number of feedback data/indicators will help design and/or validate energy and renovation policies, business models and opportunities

Continuously improving data and estimations by comparing and analysing estimated and real data to develop a learning mechanism that is aimed at improving estimations and gradually deliver automatic BRPs that are closer to reality

Ensuring the replicability and exploitability of the OCR results by identifying Key Exploitable Results (KERs) and devising business models tailored to the different EU ecosystems

The technical, financial and social viability of the staged OCR renovation approaches and solutions will be demonstrated in five pilot markets, selected on the basis of different local requirements and objectives.

Role of Certimac

Thanks to well-established and effective participation in research and development EU, national and regional projects, Certimac has gained strong skills, tested and validated innovative solutions in the areas of:

building energy efficiency

renovation of existing buildings

sustainability of materials and circular economy

monitoring of building performance.

Certimac is the leader of the OCR WP5 - “Equipping buildings with BRPs: demonstration in real pilot markets”. Certimac coordinates the demonstration activities of the technical, financial and social viability of the staged renovation approaches and solutions in the five pilot markets. To this end, key stakeholders will be identified and engaged so as to activate the pilot ecosystems. Co-design processes carried out with key-stakeholders will allow OCR to foster deep renovation interventions by :

COLLECTING

- demand and supply views on staged building renovation,

- local requirements for the implementation of BRPs,

- digital tools

DEFINING

- key features,

- functional requirements,

- use cases.

Secondly, Certimac actively contributes to all the Project activities by supporting the definition and design of BRPs. Thirdly, Certimac will play a key role in devising methodologies and calculations for BRPs and in ensuring effective replication and upscaling of the OCR outcomes.

Expected outcomes

COLLECTING

- demand and supply views on staged building renovation,

- local requirements for the implementation of BRPs,

- digital tools

DEFINING

- key features,

- functional requirements,

- use cases.

Increased rate of deep renovation through large scale involvement of building owners in the OCR-GIS based web tools

Facilitated introduction of BRPs through large scale provision of automated customized BRPs, generated via a GIS-based ICT platform that acts as entry point according to a building location and user-profile

Improved reliability, cost-competitiveness and affordability of renovation approaches, through deep analysis of national building regulations and Long Term Renovation Strategies - LTRSs

Improved coordination with existing support and funding schemes by integrating financial products/entities in the OCR calculator or considering the calculator outputs

Improved coordination with One-Stop-Shops for renovation at local level, both by involving pilot markets where One-stop-shops initiatives are already active and by promoting the development of online One-Stop-Shops based on the OCR concept

Improved alignment with the EU and national regulatory frameworks for the introduction of BRPs through step-by-step guidelines for designing a new BRP scenario and/or strategy based on priority indicators.