This report describes the purpose, the conduction and first results of a comprehensive survey as well
as several interviews and studies on the renovation processes of several municipalities that was
performed amongst EERAdata implementing partners. The EERAdata project intents to bring several
data sources, local policies, and existing schemes together in one data-driven tool that will help to steer
building renovation decisions into a sustainable and energy efficient future.
To set the foundation for that, the project partners needed to evaluate and investigate the existing
situation in the partner municipalities and regions. Therefore, a comprehensive survey with more than
129 questions was established and answered by the partners. Accompanying interviews and bilateral
interview and assessment sessions were established to improve the survey and additionally gather
information on the renovation processes, the influence of the political situation and the data situation of
each municipality
The survey and the accompanying interviews had five main purposes:
▪ To identify the building, environmental and socio-economic data situation in each of the
EERAdata frontrunner municipalities and regions. Is it possible to find the necessary data
basis to perform the desired multidimensional assessments in the case study areas? It
furthermore fostered the collaboration and investigation within municipalities and regions,
beyond single departments and entities.
▪ To identify existing building codes, political strategies, renovation frameworks, regularities,
used tools and software, existing long-term strategies, etc. The results will help to develop an
EERAdata Decision Support Ttool (in short DST) that is really used and fits the requirements
of every municipality or region where it is implemented. The DSTwill be integrated or added to
existing infrastructure and should provide insights, calculations, and assessment beyond the
existing schemes. It therefore must incorporate these schemes in the development and
design process.
▪ To create case studies and user stories that will help to develop the DST along the situation
in the target municipalities and regions. These user stories will contain information about the
involved bodies, departments and most important: decision makers. It will tell the political
goals, the overall strategy and position of the municipality regarding energy efficiency and
climate change. It will furthermore help to create guidelines and handbooks to integrate the
tool in existing decision-making processes and energy efficiency plans.
▪ To identify the future users of the tool and their specific needs. The EERAdata DST will deal
with various types of data and planning schemes Therefore, data protection and access rights
will play a significant role in the development process. The partners were asked to define
personas and user roles which later on will create the different layers and interfaces as well
as reporting functions of the DST.
▪ To create a questionnaire and user journey, which serves, in a later stage to pre-assess the
situation in municipalities and regions who want to use the EERAdata Decision Support Tool
(DST). The current survey will therefore be improved and optimised with the participating
municipalities and regional partners, to make it handier, automated with predefined answers
and with a direct line to adjust the DST functions.
First results indicate:
▪ The data basis for the socio-economic, the environmental and energy-related building and
building renovation impact assessment is better than expected. However, which was one of
the reasons to establish this project, the data is scattered and either access rights, data
owners or the format and type of data are varying significantly. Some data must be processed
or gathered manually. The next steps in the project will include a sensitivity analysis on these
data segments and if and how they are necessary and must be implemented. Trilateral
Research will then take an approach to ease the sorting, processing, and collection of data
from these different sources. The chapters 3 and 4 will highlight some of these results with
specific examples.
▪ Decision making processes, political schemes and renovation strategies differ a lot between
countries and even between municipalities in one region. This is due to the budget situation
but also the size and the amount of managed properties. However, some core similarities
could be found. The assessment process is similar and also the data base regarding the
building stock cover the same indicators all over Europe. European norms as the European
Performance of Building Directive or the Energy Efficiency Directive left their traces even in
small municipalities
▪ Socio-economic data is partly available but not connected to building renovation effects.
Demographic assessment and census data are available in singular units or on regional
scale. Here the EERAdata project will create a first attempt on linking socio-demographic data
with building renovation impact assessment.
▪ Measures and KPIs: Since most municipalities get renovation funds and budget by national or
international funds (mostly EU) they have to fulfil specific key performance indicators. These
indicators mostly tackle climate change issues and therefore are very similar between all
investigated countries. Furthermore, the measures to achieve the goals could also be defined
and a list of the most overlapping and conducted measures was created for the further tool
development
▪ Case studies: Even when there are a lot of similarities between the partner-municipalities and
regions, the political processes, involved bodies, conducting specialists, budget managers,
databases, workflows are differing significantly in their very details. The EERAdata project
therefore developed case studies for each partner to draw the line of action and the different
user needs as well as influences for each step. These case studies will be elaborated with
gaining knowledge as the project proceeds.
▪ Personas: Another way to streamline the DST to the users’ needs was to create virtual
personas. These personas represent the future users, their security levels, access to data,
special needs of representation of results, level of detail of the different modules of the tool
and so on. These personas are already created (Annex 1) and will be integrated into the
countries factsheets, the description of the tool and the methodology (Deliverable 2.1, 3.4 and
Deliverable 5.1)
Planned improvements and next steps:
The current results, quality, and number of questions already give a profound insight of the needs and
situation of the implementing municipalities and regions. The questionnaire however is going to be
streamlined, slimmer and designed as a digital user journey via an online browser. Therefore, the
questions will be reduced, predefined answers will be implemented in the most cases. Graphical
indicators and an improved story telling will help the user to get through the comprehensive questions
with ease.
The answers and numbers from the current survey will be updated and persisting gaps will be filled
within the next months. The answers will then lead to an extensive data collection which will generate
the data stock for the EERAdata DST. The results also help to design and adjust the methodologies in
the socio-economic, life cycle, environmental and energy performance modules of the tool.
The case studies will be elaborated and filled with modules and prototypes of the EERAdata tool in the
next months. Additional workshops, webinars and interviews will take more case studies into account
as well as personas and future users of the tool (e.g. the AVRA (the Andalusia Social Housing Agency),
which has great interest in the DST).
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This report describes the purpose, the conduction and first results of a comprehensive survey as well
as several interviews and studies on the renovation processes of several municipalities that was
performed amongst EERAdata implementing partners. The EERAdata project intents to bring several
data sources, local policies, and existing schemes together in one data-driven tool that will help to steer
building renovation decisions into a sustainable and energy efficient future.
To set the fou...
»