Cooltorise aimed to reduce summer energy poverty incidence among European households, improving their indoor thermal habitability conditions and reducing their energy needs during the hot season, which will in turn decrease their exposure to heat and heat-related health risks.
To achieve these objectives, some other areas were addressed:
- Set a common framework on summer energy poverty in Southern European countries.
- Define solutions to tackle summer energy poverty
- Train energy poverty agents to work with energy poor households
- Alleviate summer energy poverty conditions of more than 7,100 people.
- Foster women’s empowerment to try to revert the feminisation of energy poverty.
- Accomplish a high level of dissemination that brings to the fore the issue of summer energy poverty.
With a budget of over 1 million euros, the COOLtoRISE proposal addressed the topic of mitigating household energy poverty.
- Particularly, the project focuses on two specific areas:
Facilitate behavioural changes throughout raising awareness on summer energy poverty and implementation of low-cost energy efficiency measures tailored for energy-poor households. - Test and disseminate innovative schemes for energy efficiency-focused on alleviating households’ deprivation conditions related to summer climate severity.
In all actions planned, inequalities faced by women in access to energy are taken into account. Cooltorise consortium was aware of energy poverty feminisation. Cooltorise main goal was to reach, at least, 7,240 consumers.
To that end, the consortium was built by institutions with different skills and fields of work to effectively engage households and implement solutions to tackle energy poverty through various approaches.
Workshops with vulnerable consumers took place during the first and second year of the project, where the engagement of households took place. A minimum of 82 workshops have been estimated for 2021-2022.
Conferences for key stakeholders were held including 12 conferences to reach, at least, 240 stakeholders within the duration of the project. Mailing campaigns were carried out in COOLtoRISE neighbourhoods, with the aim of increasing the knowledge about the project and its engagement among communities, in addition to the already-involved vulnerable consumers. Mailing campaigns will take place during the three years of the project, expecting to reach 140,000 consumers (5% are estimated to be stakeholders).
Information points, which are already deployed in some areas and will be reinforced with the project. These points are expected to reach vulnerable energy consumers, both during and after the end of the project, with an increasing capacity. It is not only expected to reach vulnerable consumers (around 14,000, including the 5 years after the project has ended), but also key stakeholders (about 1,500, including the 5 years after the project has ended). Estimations are based on the scope of the actual information points at the moment.
Cooltorise website and its related social networks was set to reach different stakeholders. It was planned to increase its impact from 1,000 users during the first year of the project to around 50,000 users five years after the project has ended. It was expected that 5% of these users will register in the website for getting access to specific documentation, therefore they will be considered stakeholders.
Advertising in media and the public space is one of the most important communication activities planned to increase awareness and summer energy poverty literacy. Following a similar pathway as done in ASSIST or SMART-UP, ads were deployed within the public transport infrastructure, such as bus stops in vulnerable neighbourhoods, as well as in local magazines and other media supports.
Some concrete key performance indicators (KPIs) of the project included:
- Primary energy savings: 1.22 GWh/year Reduction of greenhouse gases emissions: 1,004 tCO2- eq/year 123.
- Professionals participating in trainings and with increased skills on energy issues.
Relevant publications of the project can be accessed on the EPAH publications database.
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Countries impacted:
BulgariaSpainItalyGreece -
Geographical scale:
Regional and Local -
Energy poverty phase:
Implementation -
Intervention type:
Stakeholders' Engagement -
Professionals involved:
Member of a local/national authority -
Type of funding:
European funds from the H2020 programme of the European Union -
SDGs addressed:
