H2020 ComAct – Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation

From 2020-2023 IWO e.V. was part of the H2020 project “ComAct – Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation”. A consortium of ten partners contributed to the reduction of energy poverty.

Target regions are Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) and successor states of the Soviet Union (CIS). In Europe, energy poverty affects their inhabitants most. The main reasons include high energy prices and the poor energy status of buildings and household appliances. The ComAct project takes particular account of the fact that the housing stock with a high proportion of multi-family houses is predominantly owner-occupied, but low-energy households are affected. In order to address the complex causes of energy poverty, a new approach must be developed to significantly influence energy costs, make energy efficiency (RE) measures affordable and thus reduce the high level of energy poverty.

The ComAct project aimed to make the cost-intensive energy-efficient improvements in multi-family houses affordable and manageable and to create the necessary funding conditions to lift communities out of energy poverty.

To achieve this goal, an approach to identifying and selecting communities with energy poverty was developed first, followed by influencing the process in three main dimensions – empowering and activating homeowners’ associations, developing or adapting financial instruments to support low-income families, and optimising technical solutions for the most favourable cost-benefit ratio of energy-efficient improvements in multi-family housing. In order to demonstrate the applicability, benefits and potential for alleviating energy poverty, five pilot projects were implemented in Hungary, Bulgaria, Northern Macedonia, Lithuania and Ukraine.