Energy-renovation services for single-family houses

The Nordic SuccessFamilies project, with participants from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, dealt with development of business models for full-service energy-efficient renovation of detached houses in the Nordic countries (see Figure 1). The background to this project is that most of these houses are more than 30 years old and have a need to be renovated, which provides opportunities for implementation of energy-efficiency measures. Energy-related renovation of existing buildings has huge potential for cost-effective energy savings. Residential buildings are responsible for 70% of the energy use of buildings in the Nordic countries. Single-family houses are responsible for more than 50% of this. There is a substantial shortage of business concepts for renovation services for single-family houses. The solution to the lack of business concepts for renovation services for single-family houses is that, first of all, renovation service packages should be developed to include standard technical solutions for energy-efficiency improvements applicable for different building systems and ages of building. Secondly, all other necessary services should be included, providing overall renovation solutions for those people living in single-family houses. The new services must be supported with new features, such as better visualisation, guaranteed prices, and funding services. To create such new services, Nordic co-operation was initiated in 2009. The main objective of the SuccessFamilies project was to change the business environment in order to speed up the implementation of sustainable renovation of single-family houses. The resulting new service concepts combine technical solutions; financing services; and other means of overcoming the behavioural, organisational, legal, and social barriers to sustainable renovation.