The main objective of POWERPOOR is to develop support programmes/schemes for energy poor citizens and encourage the use of alternative financing schemes (e.g. establishing energy communities / cooperatives, crowd funding). POWERPOOR will facilitate experience and knowledge sharing, as well as the implementation of small-scale energy efficiency interventions and the installation of renewable energy sources, increasing the active participation of citizens. Pilot energy poor support programmes/schemes will be designed, developed and implemented in eight countries across Europe, led by a network of certified Energy Supporters and Energy Communities Mentors. The Energy Supporters / Mentors will support (more than 22,000) energy poor households to plan and implement energy efficiency interventions, as well as participate in joint energy initiatives. Energy poor citizens will be engaged through various planned activities, such as Info Days, Local Energy Poverty Offices, and ICT-driven tools (Energy Poverty Mitigation Toolkit). The establishment of the Stakeholders Liaison Groups will also facilitate the engagement and the provision of support to energy poor households. Guidelines on how to tackle energy poverty in Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans will also be developed. Based on the experience gained and the lessons learnt from implementing POWERPOOR, EU policy recommendations and 8 National Roadmaps will be elaborated, so that policy makers at all governance levels can learn from the project. The project results will be broadly disseminated, and synergies will be pursued with global and EU initiatives, such as the EU Energy Poverty Observatory and the (EU and Global) Covenant of Mayors on Energy and Climate. The participation of networks in the Consortium will strengthen the dissemination and exploitation of POWERPOOR outputs across Europe during and beyond the project implementation.

We are currently seeing a deceleration of renewable energy growth in Europe. This is partly attributed to the challenges for financing renewable energy projects. Reduced access to conventional financing options over the past few years has triggered innovative financing schemes to emerge, with crowdfunding attracting a lot of attention. CrowdFundRES recognises the vast potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy projects. The project has been developed for and in cooperation with the three target groups: 1) Renewable energy project developers whose access to financing is getting more challenging 2) The part of the public that has an interest in investing even very small amounts of their savings in renewable energy projects 3) Crowdfunding platforms who act as intermediaries facilitating the financial transaction between the public and the project developers. The overall objective of the proposed project is to contribute to the acceleration of the renewable energy growth in Europe by unleashing the potential of crowdfunding for financing renewable energy projects. In order to achieve this, the work has been structured for achieving the following objectives: 1. Gain a deep understanding of the public’s perception of crowdfunding 2. Analyse the challenges faced by the application of crowdfunding for renewable energy projects in Europe 3. Develop guidelines that support easier, more effective and wider accepted practices in crowdfunding renewable energy projects 4. Apply the guidelines and review them based on practical experience 5. Improve the market and regulatory framework 6. Promote the crowdfunding concept and its advantages among those who could contribute or raise funds

Seven major municipalities in the Athens Metropolitan Area join efforts to launch showcase energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, utilizing innovative financial tools and attracting private investments. The projects comprise energy efficiency interventions in 116 municipal buildings, integration of a total 3.2 MW of photovoltaics on the roofs of these buildings and re-lamping for the municipal lighting. Total energy savings is 45.6 GWh/y and renewable electricity production is 4.8 GWh/y. Total cost for interventions is 20.24 M€ and the PRODESA cost is 1.06 M€. To achieve its objectives, the project shall focus on optimal bundling of the fragmented municipal projects to achieve considerable size, reasonable payback time and risk diversification. Bundling is also expected to lower processing costs. Pooling of resources is used to optimize financial results for all parties and to ensure high participation of ESCOs in the tenders. The newly introduced National Revolving Fund for Energy Efficiency and the Utility ESCO Fund will be part of the pool. Pooling will facilitate the exploitation of innovative financing schemes. Crowdfunding has been recently introduced in the Greek legislation and this tool will be carefully studied and applied. PRODESA is the first of its kind effort in Greece and aims to significantly contribute to the Energy Performance Contracting take-off. For this reason the project consortium has pooled together Key Actors such as the National Center for energy efficiency, the European Crowdfunding Network and entities with technical, financial and legal expertise. Being a showcase project, it emphasizes on capacity building, replicability, dissemination and exploitation of results. Two replicator municipalities are directly involved in the project and a network of at least 30 replicators will be initiated with the help of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece.

Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (BDLTs) cover a revolutionary potential but their uptake and deployment to value chains other than financial ones remains slow. Among other causes, fragmentation and a series of obstacles to their market deployment hamper the diffusion and pace of adoption of BDLTs by SMEs. Blockpool.eu (https://blockpool.eu/) aims to enhance SME innovation capacity by providing better innovation support. We will use the power of intermediary organisations (clusters, federations...) and cross-regional industrial networks to Pilot the acceleration of SME uptake and deployment of BDLTs. Our consortium thus aims to accelerate the cross-border uptake and deployment of BDLTs by/to European SMEs. Blockpool.eu aims to grow beyond the Pilot Project to become a sustainable Portal for BDLT deployment. We will build and strengthen SMEs’ and intermediaries’ BDLT capacity in a cross-value chain fashion, and strengthening both supply and demand sides through 1) a Blockchain “deployment pool” and 2) generic support activities. Besides enabling actions toward framework conditions and the capacity increase of SMEs, intermediaries and to another extent policy makers and regulators, Blockpool.eu will develop a Deployment Pool: 25 SME projects will be selected through an Open Call allocating at least 50% of the total project budget to test and validate new BDLT solutions (TRL7+) in most prominent sectors (e.g. supply chain, energy, healthcare, Fintech, Insurance, Legal, Shipping & Social Good). SMEs will also benefit from the support of our Mentors Network, training (MOOC/Webinars), as well as other innovative tools. That way, Blockpool.eu will contribute to the demonstration of BDLTs to SMEs across EU value chains but also generate impacts at a broader level than the one of its Deployment Pool: we will generate impacts at the level of the framework conditions (economic, social, legal and regulatory) conditioning the uptake and deployment of BDLTs.