Proposals should cover only one of the two scopes below, either Scope A or Scope B of the topic.

Scope A: Policy and coordination support to public authorities and stakeholders

Actions should support national, regional and/or local authorities and relevant stakeholders in setting up formalised, long-term, cross-sectoral coordination structures to tackle energy poverty. The coordination structures should foster cross-departmental and cross-sectoral collaboration across national, regional, and/or local government structures, and involve relevant public bodies and private/public stakeholders, such as civil society organisations, healthcare providers, economic operators or academia. The proposal should outline the organisational (including the engagement strategy for participating actors), main methods of operation and key objectives (e.g. development of definitions, criteria, or indicators, data collection, advice on support methods or schemes to reduce energy poverty, etc). The proposal should also identify the specific local/regional/national challenges or gaps the coordination structure(s) aim to address. Where similar coordination structures (e.g. energy poverty observatories) already exist or are already in development82, the proposal must clearly demonstrate the need for, and added value of, any new coordination structures and must also demonstrate the support of, or existing cooperation with, the existing structure(s).

To facilitate the set-up of such structures and build the necessary organisational expertise, proposals should also include the delivery of tailored capacity-building activities for the specific national, regional and/or local authorities and stakeholder organisations involved in the coordination structures. The capacity-building should consist of structured, in-depth training tailored to the specific needs and languages of the coordination structure members, ensuring improved skills and capacity in the long term.

To facilitate the set-up of such structures and build the necessary organisational expertise, proposals should also include the delivery of tailored capacity-building activities for the specific national, regional and/or local authorities and stakeholder organisations involved in the coordination structures. The capacity-building should consist of structured, in-depth training tailored to the specific needs and languages of the coordination structure members, ensuring improved skills and capacity in the long term.

The main public authorities involved in the coordination structure(s) must be identified in the proposal. The public authorities and stakeholders, such as consumer or social organisations, the housing sector, energy companies, or healthcare providers, should be either directly involved in the consortium or their concrete commitment and involvement in the coordination structures should be demonstrated in the proposal through, for example, tailored letters of support at executive decision making level.

The proposal should make clear whether the proposed coordination structures address the national, local and/or regional level. If several governance levels are addressed, the need for this should be justified in the proposal.

The proposal should set out a convincing plan to ensure long-term sustainability of the coordination structures beyond project duration, including the expected hosting entities.

Scope B: Facilitating residential multi-apartment building renovation

Actions under Scope B should support the energy renovation of residential multiapartment buildings in spatially related vulnerable districts/neighbourhoods with predominantly energy poor inhabitants, with a view to reducing and optimising their heating and cooling needs and improving the health and comfort of energy poor residents.

In order to facilitate the uptake of renovation measures, proposed actions are expected to concretely support the renovation of multi-apartment buildings by implementing strategies and approaches, which may include reinforcing and/or adapting the governance and decision-making structures of building management and homeowners or tenants associations, tackling related regulatory barriers such as property/rental laws and/or condominium laws, defining appropriate financing strategies for the specific target group, addressing split incentives (where relevant), and setting up and/or coordinating relevant support or advisory services (e.g. resource centres, one-stop shops). Where such support/advisory services are already in place, proposals should demonstrate how they build on them, rather than establish new services.

The proposed actions are encouraged to consider both winter and summer energy poverty and integrate building-level measures with community or neighbourhood level approaches, where appropriate. These approaches may include, for example, integration of sustainable active cooling solutions with passive cooling measures (e.g. nature-based solutions, urban greening), or social leasing schemes.

Regardless of the specific measures proposed, the proposal should demonstrate their affordability for energy poor residents in terms of both upfront and longer term costs.

The renovation actions supported should also ensure the ability of residents to remain in their homes after works, thereby avoiding so-called renovictions.

It is expected that the homeowners or tenant associations and housing organisations, in particular, in addition to other relevant actors (e.g. financial institutions), are either directly involved in the consortium or their concrete commitment and involvement in the project is clearly demonstrated in the proposal through, for example, tailored letters of support.

For both Scope A and Scope B

Proposals should take into account multiple benefits from energy efficiency and renewable energy for different energy poor target groups, such as improved health, comfort, air quality, better social inclusion etc. Specific attention could be paid to particular groups which are more at risk of being affected by energy poverty or more susceptible to the adverse impacts of energy poverty, taking into account gender, where relevant. Proposals are not expected to develop new IT tools, databases or platforms, unless their added value compared to existing ones is justified, and their potential scale-up beyond the project convincingly addressed.