The recast EPBD (2010/31/EU) and EED (2012/27/EU) pose demanding requirements on MS for increasing the energy-efficiency (EE) of public buildings e.g.: targets in national plans for stimulating retrofits towards Nearly Zero Energy Buildings; annual 3% renovation rate for central government buildings; long-term strategy for mobilising investment in cost-effective deep renovation. The EED foresees that MS shall encourage public bodies, including at regional and local level, to: adopt an EE plan, containing specific energy saving and efficiency objectives/ actions, following the exemplary role of government buildings; put in place an energy management system, including energy audits, as part of their plan implementation; use where appropriate, energy service companies and energy performance contracting to finance renovations; implement plans to maintain or improve EE in the long term.

The main common cross-border challenge tackled by BENEFIT is insufficient capacities of public administrations in the cross-border area to develop reliable cost-effective EE action plans for their public buildings’ stock. Other key challenges include: i) their insufficient level of expertise to apply advanced energy modelling methodologies therefore needing a simpler but reliable decision support system ii) difficulty in buildings’ energy data collection iii) lack of specific methodology to categorise them in typologies iv) lack of specific decision-support system for planning energy retrofits.

BENEFIT aims to address all above challenges by undertaking activities along three key axes: