Service Inventory
How did we find energy services?
- A selection of good practice.
BewareE developed a Service Inventory of more than 100 examples of energy services from all over Europe, by analyzing EU projects, national and local projects of housing organisations and other stakeholders. The methodology for identifying best practices included the following steps:
- Screening European projects for energy services for household / housing organisations (web- and literature analysis);
- Expert interviews with European housing associations (such as UEPC or CECODHAS), national housing associations, national energy agencies or European research projects on their energy services as well as to obtain fiurther suggestions for interview partners in the European countries.
- Telephone interviews with four to five possible service providers of energy services.
As a first result 138 services have been identified. A first evaluation showed a clear distinction between services with a genuine high service part (services of Service Inventory) and those, which are intrinsically tied to other actions like building measures, energy generation or scientific research (Further Services). This distinctions led to 98 really "true" services of the Service Inventory and 46 services with a lower service component (Further Services).
How did we select Best Practice from the Service Inventory?
In a second step, the identified services for the Service Inventory have been described in a simple SWOT-form regarding
- residents' acceptance
- potential market size
- energy reduction potential [%]
- initial costs [€ per service unit or per household/year]
- initial cost for the service (€/service unit) and
- development stage
The average value of the SWOT-rating of all services of the service inventory for all categories has been 7.8. The aim was to identify best practices, with a minimum value having been set at a value greater than 8.0. According to this rating 29 services could be identified als best practices.
In a third step, all services of the service inventory were reviewed again for qualitative aspects. This qualitative assessment took into account factors like “being unique”, “energy reduction potential with low investments” and “applicability for countries with few energy services”. After the second revision of the services of the Service Inventory, seven more services were regarded as best practices. All in all, 36 services have been identified as “Best Practices”.
Which categories for the Service Inventory were used?
The identified services of the Service Inventory have been clustered into the following service categories:
- Campaigns
- Consulting for the housing sector
- Empowerment
- Energy information
- Energy monitoring
- Exhibitions and events
- Face to face advice
- Financing and consultation
- Low cost incentives
- Training forums
- Web tools.
What are "Further services"?
Further services are characterized by a lower service component. Still, they have been described by the BewareE team and were allocated to this category. They are not part of the Service Inventory. The same is true for services, which don't explicitly focus on energy saving behaviour. There are three categories of Further Services:
- Energy efficient buildings
- Energy production
- Energy research
