INNOVATE will overcome market barriers to deep energy-efficient retrofits of private housing stock by developing and rolling out integrated energy efficiency (EE) service packages targeting homeowners in 11 target territories from 10 EU Member States (NL, DK, BE, LV, CZ, CY, SE, IT, ES and UK). An integrated EE service package includes: • Development of products adapted to consumers’ concerns • Marketing & communication • Independent advice and technical assistance. • Tailor-made financial advice • Coordination of a chain of suppliers / contractors • Ensuring high quality standards • Long-term and affordable financing The packages, developed by local and regional authorities and/or private sector stakeholders, in cooperation with financing institutions and investors, will be tested on 117 pilot buildings, aiming at min. 50% energy savings. These pilot projects are expected to mobilise 37.41 MEUR of private investments, trigger primary energy savings of 5.38 GWh/year and 3.14 GWh/year of renewable energy production. INNOVATE will widely disseminate successful business models and innovative financing schemes tested by project partners and those identified thanks to an extensive analysis of enabling conditions and EU best practices. 4,000 stakeholders and potential replicators will be reached via 61 EU and national capacity building events, policy meetings and communication/media tools. Recommendations on how to remove legal, financial, technical and organisational barriers hindering the implementation of the packages in target territories will influence 12 EU, national and regional policies in order to ensure the viability of these packages.

Regional and local public authorities have a strong role to play in fighting energy poverty. That is why the overall objective of POWER UP! is for cities to go beyond their planning role and sustain the creation of local energy market players with a social agenda. This will be realised by the following 3 specific objectives: - Implement pilot schemes for households in energy poverty, so that they benefit from renewable energy production and energy efficiency measures, without having to bear the financial risks; - Develop and reinforce local energy market players with a social agenda, based on a long-term perspective to acquire local knowledge and strengthen the local economy; - Disseminate the experience of the consortium members to facilitate the replication in European countries. Four pilot schemes will be developed in five locations across Europe: Eeklo (Belgium), in the Campania area (Italy), in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm (Czech Republic), and Valencia (Spain). These schemes will be co-created with energy-poor households and local stakeholders (cities, social organisations, energy utilities, citizen energy communities etc.), leading to at least 2,5 Million EUR investment in sustainable energy before the project ends and involving 58 333 energy poor consumers. Supported by a European city network, a leading UK university, a Belgium cooperative and finance experts, the consortium will build the capacity of more than 185 people in local organisations. This will allow these players to either provide cheap energy to fuel poor households, or reinvesting benefits to carry out energy poverty mitigation measures.

Energy poverty is becoming a main challenge of the European welfare systems and beyond, abounding on the inequalities derived from living conditions and social determinants, with a direct and negative impact on health and wellbeing, mainly in urban contexts. Health problems attributable to energy poverty include respiratory diseases, heart attacks, stroke and mental disorders (stress, anxiety, depression), but also acute health issues, such as hypothermia, injuries or influenza. The complex nature of this recently identified phenomenon requires a comprehensive analysis of the problem and its solution from a multidimensional approach, which should involve environmental, political, social, regulatory and psychological issues, thus involving other Social Determinants of Health and health inequalities. Urban policies and initiatives might respond very efficiently to energy poverty and their effects on the citizens wellbeing and health, by providing evidence-based interventions covering different angles of the challenges, including complementary actions covering individual (behavioural) but also social-political actions (regulations, urban planning) that include health in all policies. Based on the socio ecological model and on the realist evaluation approach, WELLBASED will design, implement and evaluate a comprehensive urban programme to reduce energy poverty and their effects on the citizens health and wellbeing, built on evidence-based approaches in 6 different pilot cities, representing different urban realities but also a diverse range of welfare and healthcare models. The project’s multidisciplinary consortium, made up of 19 partners from 10 countries, has been built to guarantee the full coverage of the scientific, clinical, social, and environmental competencies, and to gather the viewpoint of different communities and actors necessary to develop, test and evaluate the interventions related to WELLBASED in order to maximize its chances of success. WELLBASED is a part of the European cluster on urban health.