The European Energy Communities Forum 2024, held in Prague, Czech Republic, featured a Citizen-led Renovation workshop hosted by the OSR-Coop Project partners and REScoop.eu on 15 May 2024. The workshop ran from 09:30 to 11:00, attracting nearly 30 participants from various European countries. Attendees included members of energy communities, energy cooperatives, and representatives from funding organizations. The agenda was divided into three main sections:

  • Introduction
  • Interactive group work session
  • CLR Support Service and Conclusion
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Introduction and Policy Overview

The session began with introductions from the facilitators and an overview of the Citizen-led Renovation concept. Felix Kriedemann, Project Manager at REScoop.eu, at the start of the session presented EU-level policy achievements relevant to One Stop Shops for renovation services, retrofitting, and building energy efficiency.

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Interactive Group Discussions

Sandy Rushton from People Powered Retrofit led the interactive portion of the workshop. Participants were divided into groups to discuss two key questions:

  • What experience or expertise does your energy community already have, that would enable you to deliver this aspect of citizen-led renovation?
  • What are the barriers to delivering this aspect of citizen-led renovation? What may get in your way?

The ORS-Coop project partners assisted in these group discussions, providing insights based on their ground experience. Each of the groups identified several barriers, such as lack of funding and regulatory challenges, and enablers like available opportunities and existing demand.

The discussions focused on three thematic areas: renovation advice, energy audits, and renovation measures. At the end of the interactive work, each group collected a number of barriers and enablers for each thematic area presented in the plenary.

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EU CLR Suppor Service and Open Call

In the final part of the CLR session, Gosia Matowska presented details of the EU's support services for CLR and the current open call for projects, providing participants with practical information on how to proceed with Citizen-led Renovation initiatives.

The workshop successfully facilitated knowledge sharing and highlighted both challenges and opportunities in the field of deep home renovation services, offered by energy communities and cooperatives. Stay tuned to learn more about the collected enablers and barriers in an upcoming blog post.