Factor 4, Programme of actions towards Factor 4 in existing social housings in Europe

Factor 4 is a SAVE project partly funded by the EUROPEAN COMMISSION – Intelligent Energy – Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation (EACI) - (Grant agreement EIE/05/076/S12.419636)

The Factor 4 project

The Factor 4 project follows the Sustainable Development World Strategy, the Kyoto protocol and the European energy policy which is to reduce by a factor 4 energy consumption in European countries before 2050.

It is focussed on social housing retrofitting for improving energy efficiency and facilitating the use of renewable energy, in order to participate to the reduction of greenhouse gas emission (GEG) by a factor 4 before 2050.

The Factor 4 project aims at:

• helping social owners to set up sustainable energy retrofitting strategies for their whole building stockworking out innovative solutions and their experiment for energy retrofitting
• providing technical and economic information for tenants and (small) local professionals on energy efficient techniques
• the promotion of the initial energy performance diagnosis of buildings
• the dissemination and larger use of life cycle (energy) cost analysis
• facilitating the dialogue between social owners and their financial partners.

The Factor 4 project’s objective is to help social owners to set up sustainable energy retrofitting strategies for their whole building stock taking into account energy savings and the reduction of greenhouse effect gas (GEG) emissions towards a factor 4 according to the European policy which is to cut by 4 GEG emissions before 2050.

The life cycle energy cost analysis allows to set out these sustainable strategies because it allows to deal together with energy savings, the reduction of GEG emissions and socio economic issues such as the pay back return for social owners and the reduction of charges for tenants.

The Factor 4 approach for setting sustainable strategies for energy retrofitting of social housing building stocks and at territorial scales

The Factor 4 approach allows to reach the factor 4 levell (note 1)and to identify the necessary technical and economic means.
The Factor 4 approach is for various actors:

• for social owners for setting up strategies for their buildings and their whole building stock
• for local authorities and public administration for territorial strategies: for identifying the needed level of subsidies for social owners, for setting regulation or rules, for regeneration projects at the neighbourhood or city scale, etc.
• for banks for defining financial rules
• For building companies and industrial in order to better know and so to anticipate the future development of technologies, which brings a better local know how and competitiveness.

The Factor 4 approach is focussed on a life cycle energy cost (LCEC) analysis and made of the 3 following phases:

• Phase 1: a building typology for selecting the representative buildings of the building stock
  
• Phase 2: the building scale analysis: analysis of each representative building and optimisation of their energy retrofitting programme with the life cycle energy cost Factor 4 model, id est with 3 optima together: an ecological optimum (reduction of GEG emissions), an environmental optimum (reduction of energy consumption) and an economic optimum (for both the social owner and the tenant).
  
• Phase 3: the whole building stock analysis in order to set a sustainable energy retrofitting strategy for the building stock identifying the optimised retrofitting programme for each building and
  
  For more information on the Factor 4 approach, read or download the deliverables or contact the coordinator at ccv@wanadoo.fr .
  
  1 Reaching the factor 4 means to divide CO2 emissions (and so energy consumption) by 4 after retrofitting works.