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.

Seasonal solar energy potential and the need for heat and power do not match in Northern and Central European conditions. Consequently, large investments are needed for storing solar energy from summer season to dark winter time. The widely available combined heat and power plants and heating networks should be utilized effectively also in the future energy system. In addition to these challenges, decarbonisation of the transport sector requires massive production of renewable fuels especially for the heavy duty sector: air traffic, ships, heavy duty road vehicles. FLEXCHX project is aiming to present a cost-effective solution to tackle these challenges of the new European energy mix. Principal ideas of the proposal are: - A hybrid process that integrates electrolysis to biomass gasification and synthesis is developed and the key enabling technologies of this process are validated to reach TRL5. - In summer season renewable fuel intermediate (FT-wax) is produced from biomass carbon boosted with solar energy driven electrolysis. A small amount of by-product heat is also produced to cover the summer-time demand for district heating. Biomass consumption is halved compared to the winter time operation and 50 % of the input energy comes from low-cost excess electricity. - In winter season the plant is operated without the electrolyzer in a way that biomass conversion to liquid fuel intermediate, heat and electricity is maximized. - Most of the invested plant components are in full use throughout the year, only the electrolysis unit is operated seasonally Behind FLEXCHX there is a multi-national consortium composed of RTD organizations, industry and SMEs representing the entire value chain. The RTD partners have excellent synergistic competences, while the industrial partners represent lead industries covering the complete value chain from biomass gasification, gas cleaning and fuel synthesis component and plant manufacturers to service providers and end-users.