Recommendations on building hubs report (D4.1 REQUEST2ACTION)

Request2Action is a programme across nine European countries, co - funded by the European Commission. Its focus is on how data from Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), alongside other data, can be used to promote home energy efficiency. Within the project five Retrofit Hubs were developed to pilot and exemplify EPC data and insight Hub applications. These Hubs have one or several aims, from being a knowledge platform to become a one-stop-shop. Also, the spectrum of possible content is very broad e.g. energy renovation, tourism information, services offer. Request2Action Hubs focus energy renovation of residential buildings. They were developed by ADENE (PT), CRES (GR), ENEA (IT), EST (UK) and VITO (BE), each tailored-made to their specific country situation. The report describes partners' experience on designing, building and piloting hubs and finally provides recommendations for similar products. This report is split in six chapters. In a first step, existing best-practices are analyzed. For that, Hubs within and without the energy efficiency topics are considered. Out of this analysis, a generic Hub concept is produced in CHAPTER III . CHAPTER IV presents the current Hub situation in the countries partner of the project while CHAPTER V describes the experiences of creating and piloting the Hubs in Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal and the UK. The last chapter produces recommendations derived from the experience and analysis for anyone considering to create and run a Hub.