EnerSHIFT - Energy Social Housing Innovative Financing Tender

EnerSHIFT (https://enershift.eu/en/communication/) is an energy refurbishment project where 44 public housing buildings in Liguria were renovated through innovative financing mechanisms. Energy performance contracts (EPC) weere signed, under which the investments made by the parties implementing the works (usually ESCo – Energy Service Companies) are offset by part of the energy savings obtained. The energy audits needed for EnerSHIFT were carried out by the technicians of the four Ligurian social housing agencies. After receiving specialised training from IRE Spa, the technicians carried out more than 100 audits on their local Public Residential Buildings assets. With these data, IRE created an energy inventory for each building, including a database for consumption monitoring, a record of historic energy-carrier costs, and a system of performance indicators. Later, the consumption baseline of the buildings was identified and used, at joint level, to elaborate on different intervention proposals. At the same time, assessments were made of the financial sustainability of the proposals, applying specific simulations for the payback time of the investment.

The outcome of this laborious analysis was the definition, for each building, of an optimal set of possible energy re-qualification interventions, which was then used for fine-tuning the requirements of the call for tenders addressed to the ESCos. Most of the retrofit interventions are implemented through the self-financing mechanism typical of the EPC contracts; the contracts have been assigned to market operators of the energy efficiency sector through the implementation of public tenders, in accordance with the Italian Law on Public Contracts. These tenders, the first of their kind in Italy, used the legal form of the Services Concession and were reserved exclusively for qualitatively certified ESCos.

3.500 families residing in the buildings to be renovated are also actively involved in the project activities: beyond the benefit coming from reduced energy consumption and improved living conditions, they will be informed and trained about energy efficiency. With a budget of over 1 million €, EnerSHIFT has been recognised as a good practice at a European level and is cited in the Guide on good practice in energy efficiency, published by the DG Energy and EASME in 2018.

The project started in 2016 and was completed in 2020. It benefited the national/local authorities and practitioners. It addressed the topics of indoor comfort (thermal comfort, housing quality), insulation, energy audits, social support, equipments, financing schemes and vulnerable consumers (disabled, students, tenants, public housing inhabitants).