SHELTERIN’ EU Quarterly newsletterN° 3 September 2011

In this edition

Editorial............................ News and Agenda...............

Dynacité case study.............

BCHG case study................

Project results...................

Shelter on the stage ........

Don’t miss.........................

• Editorial - Launching the operational implementation

The fi rst Summer University of the French private Social Housing Federation was held on the 2nd of September in Strasbourg. The secretary general of the CECODHAS, Claire Roumet, was asked about partnerships and exchange of experiences among social housing organisations and said, «Three years are necessary to understand the mechanisms used abroad, and consider how a practice can be transferred from one country to another».

The aim of the fi rst year of research within the SHELTER project was to gain an understanding of how social housing energy renovation processes function in the fi ve participating countries. Results of this research are available (a download) from the SHELTER website.

Beyond offi cial results, we are proud to see how the SHELTER project works as a platform encouraging exchanges between partners. Among issues discussed during this fi rst year we can list the place of energy renovation within the organisation strategic goals, public procurement rules, or, getting more into the detail, how to improve tendering procedures or how to infl uence tenants behaviour.

Together with the analysis of the existing energy renovation process in the participating social housing organisations, alternatives have been proposed, tailored to the circumstances of each organisation. Now facing its operational implementation, we propose in this newsletter an insight to the situation of two of our members, Dynacité, french public organisation operating in the South-East of France, and Black Country Housing Group, housing association working in Birmingham.

Angela Ruiz - LogiRep coordination team

The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily refl ect the opinion of the European Union. The European Commission is not respon-sible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein.

Project informationwww.shelterproject-iee.eu

Coordination contact:Pierre Touyatouya.p@logirep.fr

LogiRep127, rue Gambetta92150 SURESNES FRANCE

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• Agenda: Upcoming events 12 September, Brussels: CECODHAS PowerHouse big green housing exchange fi nal conference, Brussels. Will the new Energy Effi ciency Directive help to clear the way for local, participatory energy transitions?

27-29 September, Bordeaux: French National Housing Federation annual congress.

10 October 2011, Brussels: European Economic and Social Committee, Social Housing Investment: Economic models facing EU policies.

11-12 October, Helsinki : 11th European Forum on eco-innovation. Working with emerging economies for green growth. ETAPhttp://ec.europa.eu/environment/ecoinnovation2011/2nd_forum/

11 October, Brussels: 1st event of the European Forum on training and skills for re-building. In the frame of IEE project TRAINREBUILD www.trainrebuild.eu

• Shelter News 2 September: SHELTER project presented at the French private Social Housing Organisations Summer University, Strasbourg.

4-5 October: ECTP-E2BA Conference, Warsaw. Shelter project invited to the 5th Conference of the European Construction Technology Platform.

24-25 October: 4th Steering Committee will take place in Sofi a, Bulgaria, hosted by the Bulgarian Housing Association

PROJECT PARTNERS

SHELTERIN’ EUN°3 September 2011

Pilot building

Dynacité is a public social housing organization operating in four chief administrative divisions in the South-East of France; Ain, Isère, Rhone and Saone et Loire. It owns 23,395 dwellings that are occupied by approximately 59,000 tenants. The building stock of Dynacité is composed mainly by apartment blocks of 5 or less storeys without elevator.

In the case of a renovation project, Dynacité usually provides three tendering procedures. Two are directly related to the renovation project, being the tendering for the project manager and the tendering for the construction companies. The third tendering procedure for maintenance is not usually directly related to the renovation project. The maintenance is in most cases tendered for a defined period of time, 5 to 10 years, for a defined amount of dwellings of the social housing organization.

The results from TU Delft surveys and analysis has highlighted as a main goal for Dynacité to launch a «design-construction-operation» tendering using performance-based criteria, in order to ensure the expected energy performance after renovation works. This possibility (conception-réalisation) is provided by French procurement rules to public entities, in case of responding to specific technical needs, or aiming to a high energy performance. It is the only feasible way to have the project manager and the construction companies working at the same time on the design of the renovation works.

This experience presents the following advantages:

- the complete team of designers, constructors, and maintenance company works together in the design and following phases; therefore, there are mutual objectives, and design decisions are based upon theoretical and practical knowledge about the construction and operation.

- as there is a single contract with the social housing organisation, the responsibility in case of failure can not be pointed to other contracted parts.- it is easy to establish performance-based contracts, as the same group of companies are in charge of the construc-tion and the operation of the building.

Dynacité whishes to improve the draw up of the contracts, as a mean of achieving better quality results. The different employees of Dynacité that are involved in the construction and maintenance phases of the renovation process will act as contract draw up assistants/supervisors. Tendering award criteria are a key element for the definition of more accurate contracts.

Testing an integrated method for design/execution/maintenance.

The pilot building chosen for Shelter alternatives implementation is a three-storey building of 14 social rental dwellings from 1972 situated in a rural area of Nurieux Volognat, Ain region.

The building will be renovated to level B of the French energy performance certificate, corresponding to a maximum of 90 kWh/m2/year of primary energy consumption for heating and hot water supply.

Based on the specific program of requirements provided by Dynacité, the project teams will propose technical solutions that will aim to achieve the expected energy performance.

A new project management system will be tested, as described above, combining a first experience of integrated project delivery and an important work aiming at defining more accurate contracts. Expected results are a better quality of the works and a better management of the energy efficiency of the building after refurbishment.

For more information, please visit the pilot section of our website or contact Yves Galiègue y.galiegue@dynacité.fr

• Dynacité: experiencing a first integrated project delivery in renovation

N° 3 September 2011

SHELTERIN’ EU

The UK’s proposed Green Deal finance programme for insulating buildingsUK Government is establishing a framework to enable private firms to offer consumers energy efficiency improvements to their homes, community spaces and businesses at no upfront cost, and recoup payments through a charge in instalments on the energy bill. At the heart of the Government’s proposals is the “Green Deal plan”, an innovative financing mechanism which allows consumers to pay back through their energy bills. The Green Deal is consumer driven but within a protective legal framework; it requires all heated buildings to be treated before 2050 and it will be paid for by attaching a charge to fuel meters.

People persuaded to ask for a Green Deal will receive accredited advice about what they can do to save fuel. The recommended measures will be paid for by investors and installed by accredited contractors. The investor will be repaid from the charge on the fuel meter and the recipient will receive further advice to make sure they make the fuel savings predicted by the advisers.

We start with high fuel bills; tomorrow we want to buy less fuel because we have made fuel savings. In order to make savings we have to invest in insulation. Investors want interest on their money and fuel-bill-payers want a fuel bill saving right now. The cost of tomorrows fuel will be small, the difference between that cost and the smaller future fuel bill is the Green Deal charge on the fuel meter. Where the household is in fuel poverty or where some of the measures won’t provide a good payback there will have to be a subsidy. What we get from the Green Deal is fuel- and therefore carbon-savings and what the householder gets is lower fuel bills.

Getting people to accept the charge on their fuel meter before they can see the fuel bill savings will be difficult and striking an affordable balance between cheap money and fair returns on investment, which will unlock the capital that we need, will be very difficult. The Green Deal attempts to solve these problems by spreading the cost over more than one generation.

• Black Country Housing Group: implementing a whole-house renovation strategyBlack Country Housing Group is a housing association and regeneration agency working in Birmingham and the Black Country. It owns almost 1800 dwelling that are occupied by approximately 5400 tenants. The building stock is composed mainly of single-family dwellings (63% of the dwelling stock) the majority of which are semi-detached and terraced hou-ses. As many tenants have bought their houses from BCHG since 1980, when laws were introduced to permit social te-nants to buy their houses from their public or charity sector social landlords, few of the properties are located closely to-gether (heterogeneity).

National Energy efficiency regulations set a requirement to assess the energy efficiency of all existing dwellings at chan-ge of occupier. However, energy performance is not one of the main goals of national policies on social housing renova-tion. Building renovations are led by the Decent Homes Stan-dard (2000) that sets out the Government’s commitment to bring all social housing up to a decent standard.

In this context, the research led by the University of Delft in the framework of the Shelter project has proposed two main innovation fields regarding professionals’ coordination.To cope with the lack of energy performance goals, BCHG will introduce energy savings as a goal of the renovation strategy. BCHG expects with this initiative to gain a focus on whole-house energy renovation.

To overcome the difficulties related to the heterogeneity of the building stock and to facilitate the implementation of in-tegrated and innovative energy saving measures, BCHG will work on the development of integrated solutions by defining clear responsibilities among actors and reinforcing the design phase of the projects.

Pilot site: “inter-War” estate of semi-detached housesBoth measures will be implemented in BCHG pilot site, dwellings from the 1920’s situated in Moat Farm, Tipton, West Midlands. The project will retrofit solid-walled houses to demonstrate the opportunities for whole-house energy retrofits in social housing. The demonstration will include the installation of newly-available, carbon-saving products and techniques. Assessment -before and after Standard Assessment Procedure energy ratings (SAP-ratings) will be undertaken to predict pre- and post-renovation fuel use and provide Energy certification.

For more information on BCHG energy renovation process and pilot project, you can consult the Shelter website, re-sults and pilots sections at www.shelter-project-iee.eu or contact Kim Cherry cherryk@bchg.co.uk

N° 3, September 2011

SHELTERIN’ EU

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• SHELTER on the stageFrench Social Housing Summer University

Shelter project was presented during the first Summer University organised by the French Federation of private social housing organisations under the theme -social housing and Europe-. SHELTER project was presented as an example of european cooperation in the field of social housing, a platform enabling the exchange of experiences around professionals coordination for energy renovation.

Available project resultsA complete analysis of the current energy renovation process in the participating Social Housing Organisations from Italy, Belgium, UK, Bulgaria and France is now available.

The reports give an insight of main barriers and opportunities in the following fields:

- the place of energy policies within the organization strategic plan- work organization- design decisions- tendering and contracting-assuring the required knowledge on energy issues-influence on tenants behaviour

Moreover, the reports offer a range of precise alternatives tailored for each Social Housing Organisation and inspired

by the integrated project delivery approach, in order to improve the coordination of professionals in energy renovation.

Individual reports analysing the energy renovation process per organisation are also

available under request at our website.

• Don’t miss... ACE survey on the impact of the economic crisis on the Architect’s professionRecovery is Just Around the Corner! Architects Optimistic About Future WorkloadFor the first time since 2008, architects are expecting to see an increase in their workload in all types of work over the coming three-month pe-riod. Recent survey by the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE) is good news as the architectural profession is the first part of the construction sector to feel the end of a recession. We can say that the European economy has turned the corner and a full recovery is just ahead! To see the full results of the survey, visit the ACE website at: http://www.ace-cae.eu/public/contents/index/category_id/220/lan-guage/en

Download the complete reports from our website www.shelterproject-iee.eu, documents section.

Summer University, French Social Housing Organisations, 2nd of September.

ECTP-E2B Eracobuild Conference 2011

Shelter project will be present at the 5th Conference of the European Construction Technology Platform, combined with the Final Conference of the Era-Net Eracobuild. The Conference focuses on R&D and innovation developed by the construction sector for a ressource-efficient, sustainable and competitive European growth.