Do municipalities have the right tools to become zero carbon emissions cities? ACCENT, a Pan-European decision-support tool to take refurbishment decisions at city scale based on buildings energy performance

Abstract

Buildings are responsible for almost 40% of energy consumption and over a third of CO2 emissions in the European Union. Most of the buildings that will exist in 2050 are already built. Renovation of the existing building stock is therefore crucial to meet long term energy and climate goals. The public sector is an important driver in supporting market transformation towards more efficient energy systems and buildings. To succeed in the energy transition, it is important not only to mobilize local administrations but also to engage other local stakeholders: citizens and service providers. But the development, financing and implementation of ambitious sustainable energy plans and measures should be based on reliable data, and here we find the big challenge. The aim of this paper is to present the main insights of ACCENT (Accompany Cities in Energy Strategy), a new decision-support tool for local administrations developed under a pan-European project upheld by Climate KIC. ACCENT is a GIS web-based platform that supports local administrations to monitor building energy performance and plan actions on the building stocks of the city. ACCENT faces global pan-European challenges, such as the need to share data regarding buildings energy consumption or the reluctance of some energy suppliers to offer information in this regard. Additionally, in some countries like Spain, specific local barriers are addressed such as the lack of connection between public bodies, the dispersion of available data, the need to make citizens aware of energy renovation, or the inaccessibility of citizens and technicians to energy data. ACCENT four main functionalities—mapping, planning setting up scenarios and connecting—allows the Local Administrations to take refurbishment decisions at city scale based on buildings energy performance.