The overarching aim of SMART-UP is to encourage the active use of Smart Meters and In-House Displays by vulnerable customers, in those Member States where the roll-out of Smart Meters has been embarked upon. Indeed, previous studies have shown that Smart Meters do not lead to energy savings in the residential sector unless households actively use them and are encouraged to modify their everyday practices. Our project intends to fill in this gap, while also raising awareness on demand response services. The way we intend to do so is by developing a training program for installers, social workers and other frontline staff in contact with vulnerable people, so that they can inform vulnerable consumers about the benefits brought about by smart metering and advise them on how to use their Smart Meter and In Home Display (IHD) units (where fitted) to best effect, each time they are in contact with them. Indeed, most vulnerable and low-income householders require a one-to-one and on-going support. The training packages will be tested and improved before getting disseminated towards the major actors involved in smart meters deployment (DSOs, energy utilities, installers…). From 50 to 100 installers or other frontline staff will be trained in each project partner’s country. Each of them will deliver face-to-face advise to 10 to 20 households, so as to reach 1,000 households in each country. DSO and energy utilities (depending on the national context) will be involved to provide the necessary support for this experiment and to ensure further dissemination of the training packages. Besides empowering vulnerable consumers, the project will serve to get some feedback on their specific needs and on the ways to appropriately communicate with them and help them take profit of smart metering. The project will also help consolidate data on how much energy can be saved if vulnerable householders are empowered to make best use of the opportunities that Smart Metering offers.

Eurostat data reveals that the 11% of the total population of the European Union is unable to keep their home adequately warm. Caused by low household income, high energy bills, and low dwelling energy efficiency, energy poverty has traditionally been associated with the inability of households to meet their heating needs during winter. However, up to the 19% of households declared not being comfortably cool in summer. Nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2005, with the last five years comprising the five hottest. Not to mention this 2019 June has been the hottest on record. Climate change is increasing both the severity and frequency of extreme hot weather and heat waves and in dense urban areas, these heatwave episodes will be combined with the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, worsening city centres temperatures which will negatively impact human health and wellbeing. Thus, cooling needs and overheating risk need to be incorporated into the energy poverty equation. The project COOLtoRISE aims to reduce summer energy poverty incidence among European households improving their indoor thermal habitability conditions and reducing their energy needs during the hot season, which will decrease their exposure to heat and heat-related health risks. Not all households have an air conditioning system and it is known that energy poor households make a restrictive use of heating and cooling as they cannot afford associated energy bills. However, raising awareness on summer energy poverty and implementing actions to mitigate it will have a double benefit on European households. First, heat exposure of energy poor households will be reduced by increasing indoor thermal conditions, which will decrease in their risk to suffer heat related diseases. Second, raising summer energy culture and preventing air conditioning devices to be installed can have serious benefits on climate change preventing future emissions.

The building sector is one of the major consumers of energy in Europe, responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, Social Housing (SH) buildings show a critical state due to the lack of constant resources to upkeep and refurbish the existing stock and a long-term sound energy strategy (having to deal with emergencies). TIGER intends to improve the efficiency of SH by addressing the issues of the lack of funding and also contribute to tackling energy poverty which is a growing issue in Europe. Between 50 and 125M Europeans are unable to afford thermal comfort. The main aim of TIGER is the implementation of energy renovation interventions in SH buildings, expecting an investment over 16M€ through Energy Performance Contracting (EPC), with a simple payback period of 4 years. TIGER will engage over 1500 families living in 126 SH buildings, located in 58 municipalities in Abruzzo Region saving 8,7GWh/y of primary energy and reducing CO2 emissions of 1760tCO2/y, contributing to decarbonising the building stock. Further TIGER addresses energy poverty by improving energy efficiency, reducing energy consumptions and achieving adequate comfort levels. TIGER will develop an innovative model to be replicated and taken-up in different SH contexts. For the first time there will be a fully regional geographic approach- all 5 local SH operators will be engaged. Also the funding mechanism is innovative combining EPC with other financial instruments (ERDF, tax deductions, incentives, soft loan) in order to trigger investments by ESCOs. To properly deliver the setting-up of the investment scheme and the engagement and consensus of tenants, TIGER will appoint a PDA team including all technical and non-technical competencies and experiences (financial, technical and legal) and a capacity building programme for tenants will be set up to encourage vulnerable consumers to change their energy related behaviour.

ASSIST is a 38 month European ‘market activation - policy orientation’ project to tackle fuel poverty and support vulnerable consumers. It answers the call requirements to actively engage consumers in the energy market and positively change behaviour in relation to energy consumption and to influence design of policy at all levels to tackle fuel poverty issues. Based on the conclusion of the “Energy Citizens’ Forum”, it combines activities that address both energy and social issues as fuel poverty is not only an energy issue nor can it be tackled in isolation of the bigger issue of poverty, it will: Broaden understanding on European fuel poverty incidence and how energy support services are effectively tackling the issue, identify best practice and needs but also provide a baseline against which the activity can be compared to demonstrate its effectiveness and to inform work towards policy orientation. Create an European network and build this by ensuring quality knowledge and skills of the Vulnerable Consumer Energy Advisors (VCEA) with a supportive infrastructure for professional development and experiencing sharing. The VCEA will be in positions of direct contact with the target group in order to help mainstream energy services and, increase access and uptake for the fuel poor. The creation of the VCEA network will also encompass the recruitment of persons with direct experience of vulnerability/fuel poverty, training them to increase their employability skills but, moreover, to maximise on the peer to peer benefits that they can offer in provision of advice . With specialist VCEA and advisory strategic steering committees each nation will undertake target actions to address the specific issue. In this way the action utilises the powerful effect of target group ownership of action + bespoke solutions designed in collaboration with the target groups/end users to deliver important lessons learned for dissemination and policy influence.