Ren-on-Bill’s overall objective is to scale up investments towards deep energy renovations (ER) of residential buildings by promoting the development and implementation of On-Bill Financing schemes, based on the cooperation between energy utilities and financial institutions. On-Bill Financing (OBF) is a method of financing ER investments that draws on utility bills as repayment vehicle. OBF has been in use for more than 30 years, and it is especially widespread in the USA and Canada, where it significantly drives the building renovation market, with over 1 billion $ investments reached by 2013. Compared to traditional loans, default rates have been found to be lower, thus making OBF a lower risk instrument for investors. In Europe, although a few attempts have been made, OBF has not yet had a significant impact on the residential energy efficiency building renovation market. In detail, the project will: - Analyse and define the residential building ER and OBF market context to enable replication of suitable OBF schemes across Europe; - Engage key stakeholders (in particular energy utilities, financial institutions, representatives of the final user and ER market side) through national stakeholder platforms; - Develop tools to structure the residential sector’s ER financing demand allowing allows utilities and financial institutions to assess ER investments based on a transparent methodology and to bundle investments accordingly; - Develop suitable utility business models for the deployment of deep energy renovation OBF schemes for residential buildings in Europe; - Implement selected OBF business models at the 3 Ren-on-Bill partner utilities through a collaboration for strategic development of pilot on-bill financing schemes; - Exploit the insights gained over the project horizon to support European-wide dissemination of knowledge on OBF schemes towards utilities, financial institutions and policy-makers.

RESPOND will aim to deploy and demonstrate an interoperable, cost effective, user centred solution, entailing energy automation, control and monitoring tools, for a seamless integration of cooperative DR programs into the legacy energy management systems. In this endeavour, RESPOND will be leveraged upon an integrated approach for real-time optimal energy dispatching, taking into account both supply and demand side, while exploiting all energy assets available at the site. Owing to its flexibility and scalability, RESPOND solution will be capable of delivering a cooperative demand response at both building and district level. To provide a seamless integration of all DR enabling elements and ensure a high replication potential, RESPOND will be leveraged upon open standards for interoperability with smart home devices and automation systems, connectivity and extendibility towards smart grid and third party services such as for provision of energy prices, weather forecasts, etc. Underpinned by the smart energy monitoring infrastructure, RESPOND will be able to perform reliable energy data analytics and forecasting in order to detect potential energy conservation opportunities, and to adapt, in real time, to the operational environment considering indoor and outdoor conditions, while retaining the requested comfort levels. Through the interaction with the end users, RESPOND will aim to raise their awareness by delivering measurement driven suggestions for energy demand reduction and influence their behaviour making them an active indispensable part of DR loop. In order to demonstrate the high replication potential, RESPOND will target different types of residential buildings, situated in different climate zones, having different forms of ownership (both rental as well as home-owners), population densities and underlying energy systems.

REACT will demonstrate the potential of large-scale deployment of RES and storage assets on geographical islands to bring economic benefits, contribute to the decarbonisation of local energy systems, reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and improve air quality.To do so, REACT will deliver a scalable and adaptable cloud-based ICT platform for RES and storage enabled infrastructures, supporting a holistic cooperative energy management strategy at the community level. REACT will combine an optimal control of community owned energy assets, both conventional and renewable, with cooperative demand response (DR) actions, both explicit and implicit, to maximally exploit the flexibility of energy demand. To achieve this, REACT will leverage on energy production and consumption modelling, grid operation fault detection and diagnostics, multi-carrier supply optimization and optimal energy dispatching, while enabling synergies between different energy networks and micro-grids of island. REACT will deliver effective business models making a synergy of grid- and community-centric approaches for sustainable RES solutions, increased renewable energy exploitation, integrated and digitalised smart grids, and DR programs. Moreover, REACT will provide a solution that is fully compliant with contemporary regulatory and legal aspects, while respecting the data security and applying suitable data protection measures. REACT will target to enhance the overall energy security of geographical island with an inherent possibility for scale-up and deliver at least 10% energy savings, energy costs savings and GHG emission reduction both by 60%, and at least 50% increase in RES generation and similar reduction in fossil fuel consumption. REACT solution will be validated in 3 demo islands, while replication plans will be made for 5 other “follower” islands across EU.