Shaping Europe's Energy Future - EUSEW19 - Scaling up deep energy retrofit markets towards 2030 targets.

The ReCO2ST project was represented at a policy session at EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) in Brussels on 18 June 2019 together with the other H2020 projects RenoZEB, HEART, REZBUILD, ReCO2ST, BRESAER, BuildHEAT and P2ENDURE. The session was organized by UIPI and ACCIONA and the purpose was to share experiences and discuss barriers and possibilities for scaling up the deep energy retrofit markets towards 2030 targets. A panel consisting of Emmanuelle Causse (EU Affairs Director, International Union of Property Owners), Veronika Schröpfer (Project officer, Architect's Council of Europe) and Nora Bednarski (Policy officer, European Commission, DG ENER) was challenging the project representatives and leading the discussion. The main points in the discussion was related to measures to scale up the renovation market. This included among others discussion on measures to reduce renovation cost, importance of simultaneous focus on the value of non-energy benefits, methods to ensure credibility and durability of innovative technical solutions and lastly methods to reduce performance gabs. The ReCO2ST approach was very well received and recognized by the panel and sessions participants. The discussion was recorded and the full session can be viewed here.

ReCO2ST was represented by coordinator Per Kvols Heiselberg at the EUSEW19 - Scaling up deep energy retrofit markets towards 2030 targets session.

Alchemia-nova participated at the World Circular Economy Forum 2019 (WCEF2019) in Helsinki in Finland in the beginning of June 2019. The WCEF is a global initiative that brings together more than 2,000 business leaders, policymakers and experts to represent the world’s best circular economy solutions. At the side event “Construction and the Circular Economy” organised by the Ministry of Environment of Finland and the Green Building Council Finland, Alchemia-nova exhibited the ReCO2ST poster presenting the project concept and the nature-based technology units. Together with other stakeholders from the construction sector, architects, engineers, material producers, real-estate owners, funders, researchers and policy makers, the participants of Alchemia-nova shared the latest developments and scientific results.

Alchemia-nova participated at the World Circular Economy Forum 2019 (WCEF2019) in Helsinki, Finland 3-5 June 2019 with a ReCO2ST poster at the side event “Construction and Circular Economy” organized by the Ministry of Environment of Finland and the Green Building Council Finland.

In April 2019 the AEROPLANT developed by Alchemia-Nova was transported at UTC Commercial HVAC laboratory in Culoz, France in order to enable the validation of sensor-based parameters in relation to indoor air quality. The Vacuum insulation technology from va-Q-tec also arrived at the laboratory in Culoz in May where it was tested prior to its installation at the demo site in Vevey.

Alchemia Nova's AEROPLANT is being monitored at the laboratory in Culoz.

Work intensifies at the demo-sites as they are being prepared for the renovation works that will start this summer. Mid-June the Aeroplant arrived for installation at the Swiss demo-site in Vevey!
The city hall of Cádiz, Spain, opened in the end of May 2019 the first tender call for the works in ReCO2ST demo building in Cadiz. The design and planning for the UK demo targeted interventions is also in progress and work is due to start in mid-June. At the same time, an occupants’ feedback mobile app suitable for IOS and Android is being developed for the use of the tenants in four demo sites.

The Aeroplant has been delivered at the demo-site in Vevey.

A mobile app suitable for IOS and Android is being developed by Brunel University for collecting occupant's feedback.

On 26.03.2019 Florian Buchter from Greenwatt gave a lecture about Energy Performance Contracting at the University of Fribourg - International Institute of Management [IIMT]. Energy Performance Contracting is an important type of financing tool to accelerate the refurbishment rate of buildings and part of current research within ReCO2ST (i.e. the ReCO2ST Business model Kit). The lecture was used as a practical case for the students in a “Strategic Niche Management” module including a group work. Students worked in four groups on four different EPC segments representing typical markets (refurbishment of buildings: private owned, owned by pension fund, in industry, in public sector). The results from the students were impressive, the students were very motivated by the topic and produced high quality work!

Presentation of student work based on the concept of Energy Performance Contracting

What does it mean to design a business model of an innovation?

How do you apply a customer’s journey to exploitation potentials?

During the last 6 months, CORE specifically focused on the exploitation potential of the project. Starting from the customers and their needs, we were able to define attractive value propositions for ReCO2ST and start shaping possible exploitation scenarios for the project results, individually and as a whole.

In order to better understand our potential customers, we set out to develop a customer profile and a customer journey for each one of the customer segments, represented by the respective persona. For doing so, we first looked closer to the analysis conducted during the 1st year of the project and to the feedback we received during the Workshop on customer personas in Vienna. While examining the characteristics of the 6 personas — the needs they have, the pains they hope to alleviate with ReCO2ST, and the overall value gains they expect from the project—similar patterns were discovered among large residential building owners and property managers, as well as between building renovation experts and energy analysts. Thus the 6 personas were merged into the 4 following:

1. Lucia: the single house owner, who is also the tenant of her house.
2. Rob:the renovation contractor.
3. Mike:the property manager who is responsible for a portfolio of residential buildings on behalf of the (usually institutional) owner.
4. Maria: the renovation expert, who represents as a persona all experts involved in the concept, design and plan phases of energy building renovations.

For each of the four personas described above, a customer profile was developed along with behavioural characteristics linked to ReCO2ST offering. Moreover, a customer journey for each persona was developed, in order to map the key touchpoints with each customer segment from raising initial awareness, to purchasing decision, delivery and loyalty. On these journeys the preferred communication and purchase channels of each persona are summarized, together with their needs for customer support and preferred purchase type (pay per product, subscription, etc.).

Alongside the analysis of the customer segments, CORE together with the technology providers of the consortium worked on the definition of the value proposition of their products, with a focus on the ReCO2ST RAT, the RetroFit-Kit and ReCO2ST as a whole. Starting from the analysis of the RECO2ST technologies, interviews were conducted to better understand the value that these offerings provide to the customers. Furthermore, a gap analysis between the already known customer needs and the value proposition shows how well ReCO2ST is positioned.

Finally, the customer personas and the value proposition of the project were brought together, in order to form the basis for the ReCO2ST exploitation scenarios. By combining the gathered knowledge, CORE developed a number of different suggestions for the exploitation of RAT, the RetroFit Kit, and ReCO2ST as a whole. These will be iterated with all partners in the upcoming months and serve as the basis for the development of business models.