Towards an effective implementation of key legislation in the field of sustainable energy

Date de clôture : 16 nov. 2023  
APPEL À PROJET CLÔTURÉ

Under the Fit for 55 Package to implement the European Green Deal, the Commission proposed a whole set of new measures to revise the main pieces of climate and energy legislation, notably the Energy Efficiency Directive, the Renewable Energy Directive and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The revisions will make the policy framework for sustainable energy more stringent and ambitious. While the legislative framework offers a good amount of flexibility to Member States to design the policy measures according to their needs and framework conditions, accurate monitoring, projecting and evaluation are essential elements of implementation. Importantly, the legislation is strongly interrelated and needs to be implemented and reported in an integrated, consistent way, including through the updates and implementation of the National Energy and Climate Plans, and their biannual integrated progress reports.

With these challenges in mind, the topic aims to support the implementation of the main pieces of legislation in the field of sustainable energy, notably of the Energy Efficiency Directive (Scope A), the Renewable Energy Directive (Scope B) and the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (Scope C).

Under the call 2023, proposals are invited for the Scopes A, B and C, i.e. proposals for actions to support the implementation of:

• the Energy Efficiency Directive (Scope A).
• the Renewable Energy Directive (Scope B).
• the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (Scope C).

Proposals are expected to focus on one of the 3 scopes established below. The scope addressed should be specified in the proposal's introduction. In case a proposal addresses elements of more than one scope, the added-value of a cross-cutting approach should be adequately explained.

Actions under this topic are expected to:

• Promote and enable exchange of insights and sharing of best practices within and across Member States.
• Provide support, technical advice and tools for contextualisation and specification of requirements, in general and according to the national and regional context.
• Scope, assess and model the impact of implementation options to comply with EU legislative requirements, thereby contributing to the design of more effective policies.
• Support the monitoring and evaluation of policy implementation.
• Develop and apply methodologies to more accurately measure, calculate and account for contributions made under the specific policy measures and programmes.
• Develop and support integrated methodologies for areas and sectors that are addressed by different policies and pieces of legislation, notably approaches for integrated collection of data, calculation/accounting, verification, monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
• Monitor and model energy and non-energy impacts of integrated solutions; gather data for the energy and buildings sector.

Scope A: Support for the implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive

Actions under Scope A are expected to address core provisions and aspects of the Energy Efficiency Directive, in particular those that are reinforced or newly introduced under the Fit for 55 proposal for the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive, notably:

• the Energy Efficiency First Principle, supporting Member States in the operational implementation of the provisions and helping develop related assessment methodologies, tools and benchmarks, including for the application of the principle in planning and investment decisions in energy networks.
• the Energy Efficiency targets, including new methods to collect and integrate different sources of data, to forecast trends and to evaluate policies and measures.
• the role of the public sector in delivering energy efficiency, supporting Member States in gathering and calculating data from public bodies for the final energy consumption reduction targets.
• the Energy Savings Obligations and Energy Efficiency Obligation Schemes, supporting Member States in the design and implementation of the schemes and in the calculation of contributions and evaluation of measures.
• Contractual Rights of consumers in the area of heating and cooling, supporting Member States and regulatory bodies in putting in place provisions and standards matching the requirements and information needs of consumers and complementing the implementation of the respective articles.
• Energy Services, supporting Member States in putting in place standard contracts and quality control schemes, moreover platforms/databases that facilitate access to qualified and certified energy services providers.
• For Policy Support actions addressing energy audits and energy management systems, please refer to call topic LIFE-2023-CET-BUSINESS.
• For Policy Support actions addressing specifically energy poverty, please refer to call topic LIFE-CET-2023-ENERPOV.
• For Policy Support actions addressing private finance for sustainable energy, please refer to call topic LIFE-CET-2023-PRIVAFIN.
• For actions addressing technical support and capacity building for the transition towards renewable-based and efficient district heating and cooling systems, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-DHC.

Scope B: Support for the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive

Actions under Scope B are expected to address core provisions and aspects of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), in particular those measures that have been newly introduced or reinforced under the Fit for 55 Package and REPowerEU Plan, including but not limited to one of the following:

• Provisions related to the permit-granting process as established in the revision of the RED, notably to support the joint development of new tools, sharing of best practices, and training programmes for speeding up and streamlining permitting procedures through an EU community of practitioners in RES permitting consisting of the contact points established under Art 16 of the RED and other permit-granting authorities, including at regional and local level.
• other provisions related to the permit-granting process or to administrative procedures, regulations and codes, including the exchange of insights and good practice between relevant authorities for the identification of the land and sea areas necessary for the installation of plants for the production of energy from renewable sources, development of plans designating renewables go-to areas / acceleration areas for one or more types of renewable energy sources, including effective environmental impact mitigation measures.
• provisions related to the development of enabling frameworks to promote and facilitate the development of renewables self-consumption and energy sharing e.g. in multi-apartment blocks.
• provisions related to renewable energy communities (RECs) and potential interactions with Citizen Energy Communities, in particular, their implementation in sectors where energy community models are less prevalent (e.g. heating, flexibility services).
• different governance models and principles compliant with the definition of renewable energy communities.
• For actions related to enabling services and financial support for the early stages of specific energy community projects, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-ENERCOMFACILITY.
• For actions addressing technical support and capacity building for the transition towards renewable-based and efficient district heating and cooling systems, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-DHC.
• For actions supporting the roll-out of heat pumps, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-HEATPUMPS.

Scope C: Support for the implementation of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

Actions under Scope C are expected to address core provisions and aspects of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, in particular those that are likely to be subject to major changes newly introduced under the Fit for 55 proposal for revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

Actions should address in particular aspects in one of the two main focus areas as established below, even if not limited to these:

1. Actions to enhance the effectiveness and coherence of instruments designed to improve the energy performance of buildings, notably:

• as regards Minimum Energy Performance Standards, support for developing the standards at Member State level and for developing the necessary monitoring tools; support for developing an enabling framework including technical assistance and financial measures that accompanies the introduction of Minimum Energy Performance Standards as part of the national Building Renovation Plans.
• as regards information tools, support for the re-scaling of EPCs including for the identification of the worst-performing buildings; refining and up-dating the methodologies to calculate the energy performance classes and to provide the other mandatory and voluntary indicators to be included in EPCs; integration and methodological coordination of EPCs with the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) and other disclosure and planning tools like Building Renovation passports.
• as regards buildings data, improvement of the methodologies to collect, aggregate and report data; support for national authorities for questions of data governance; support for the design and definition of functionalities for national databases as established in the proposal for a revision of the EPBD, including methodologies to collect and integrate data from different sources, such as EPCs, inspections, building renovation passports, SRI and calculated or metered energy consumption; moreover, the link of national databases with the European Buildings Stock Observatory.

2. Actions to support the transition to a climate-neutral building stock, notably:

• as regards Zero Emission Buildings (ZEB), support for Member States to define benchmarks and refine and implement the concept against the national context, for instance by identifying criteria, thresholds and other parameters and framework conditions relevant for the definition and implementation of ZEB-standards at national level for new and existing buildings.
• as regards the Global Warming Potential of buildings, support for the setting up and implementation of the life-cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP) calculations with a view to setting up a European framework for whole life carbon reduction, notably by building on existing initiatives at national level and seeking to replicate most effective practices, and by helping integrate the calculations in the national policy frameworks and fostering the cross-policy exchanges.
• as regards Minimum Energy Performance Requirements and towards Zero-Emission Buildings, support for the up-dating of calculations and cost-optimality methodologies including up-dating of the software.
• For actions supporting specifically the market up-take of Energy Performance Certificates and the Building Renovation passport, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-BETTERRENO.
• For actions supporting specifically the accessibility of buildings data to building owners, operators and to third parties and the harmonisation of data models and standards, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-BETTERRENO.
• For actions supporting the implementation of provisions related to heat pumps, please refer to topic LIFE-2023-CET-HEATPUMPS.

Proposals must be submitted by at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities) from 3 different eligible countries.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 2 million would allow the specific objectives to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Proposals should present the concrete results which will be delivered by the activities, and demonstrate how these results will contribute to the topic-specific impacts. This demonstration should include a detailed analysis of the starting point and a set of well-substantiated assumptions, and establish clear causality links between the results and the expected impacts.

Proposals submitted under this topic should demonstrate how they will contribute to:

• Increased understanding and knowledge in public administrations in charge of implementing European energy legislation; improved collaboration of implementing bodies within and across Member States.
• More effective implementation of provisions, including better planning, design and evaluation of policy measures; more consistent implementation of legal provisions across energy legislation, energy policy and energy sectors.
• Use of appropriate tools and methods that facilitate availability and access to data; improved quality of data and better monitoring; use of more accurate calculation and Measurement & Verification (M&V) methodologies, including for cross-sector use of energy; improved quality of reporting; improved understanding and measurement of the impacts and non-energy benefits, also in view of the circular economy.
• Improved understanding of potentials and market barriers.

Proposals should quantify their results and impacts using the indicators provided for the topic, when they are relevant for the proposed activities. They should also propose indicators which are specific to the proposed activities. Proposals are not expected to address all the listed impacts and indicators. The results and impacts should be quantified for the end of the project and for 5 years after the end of the project.

The indicators for this topic include:

• Number of public authorities with increased capacities and better access to information and data.
• Number of public authorities and stakeholders using tools, resources, information and data established and provided by the activity.
• Number of policy measures, implementing acts and related documents improved by the activity.
• Number of monitoring and reporting tools and documents improved by the activity.
• Number of references in policy-relevant documents, such as impact assessments, guidance documents etc.

Proposals should also quantify their impacts related to the following common indicators for the LIFE Clean Energy Transition subprogramme:

• Investments in sustainable energy (energy efficiency and renewables) triggered by the project (cumulative, in million Euro).
• Primary energy savings triggered by the project (in GWh/year).
• Renewable energy generation triggered by the project (in GWh/year).
• Reduction of greenhouse gases emissions (in tCO₂-eq/year).