Energy Refurbishment for Condominiums and Private Houses [FR]

Energy Refurbishment for Condominiums and Private Houses (Écoréno'v) is a service of the Métropole de Lyon, supported by the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region and the ADEME to advise and support the projects of eco-renovation of private housing. All the owners can contact the ALEC Lyon , gateway to all the steps. Owners with the lowest incomes can benefit from additional assistance under the "Habiter mieux" scheme. The objective of the project is to energy retrofit 2,000 dwellings per year (from -35 % in primary energy to NZEB).

The project in details

The implementation of a specific framework led by Greater Lyon together with Local Energy Agency of Lyon (ALEC) as the "entrance door", as well as, many other stakeholders are also involved. Greater Lyon offered advice and subsidies offered to private homeowners; there are specific subsidies rules with conditions related to insulation, ventilation, heating production. 

Greater Lyon has made a political commitment to invest 30 M€ in 6 years (2014-2020) into energy refurbishment of the housing sector. The local authority also looked up for external financing, like ANAH (National Housing Agency), ADEME (National Agency for the Environment and Energy Management), ecocités and TEPCV (French national subsidies) but also European ELENA technical assistance programme that was successful. It also issued a specific call targeting banks for them to offer soft loans but this one was not really successful.

Watch "All about the Ecoréno'v service" in French

Technical and financial details

The financial schemes implemented during the project has been Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) projects bundling or pooling - setting up of a public / public-private / private ESCO (Energy Company, Operator, Aggregator); Third party financing (e.g. loans from financial institutions, private investors); Citizens finance (cooperatives/crowdfunding); and European project: H2020, Interreg, ELENA, etc.

Key Succes Factors (Replication Potential)

• In 2014, Greater Lyon already had a strong sustainable energy action plan, as recognised by the European Energy Award.
• ALEC Lyon, in his role of energy advisor for private home owners, has been pushing for energy refurbishments of condominiums.
• The national energy agency ADEME created an opportunity for this by publishing a call for interest for cities and regions who wanted to launch energy renovation programmes targeting the private housing sector.
• The municipal elections led to a political agreement between the socialist chairman and his allies from the Green Party, who committed to invest 30 M€ in the housing refurbishment as a key action of the climate action plan.
• Then were built dedicated small teams in the local authority and in the local energy agency which launched the “ecoreno'v program”, one of the most successful programs in France in this field.