Tavros-Moschatos

Country: Greece

City: Athens

District: Tavros-Moschatos

Description of the project:

The Tavros Project is located in the municipality of Moschato-Tavros in Athens and the building is a standard social multi-family house, built in the 70s to accommodate immigrants, with an area of approximately 750 m2.

It is the first multi-family building renovation in the world which will achieve the EnerPHit Plus Certification, meaning it will produce almost twice the energy that it consumes. Moreover, materials like, biobased insulation, thermochromic glazing and BIPV will be also used as innovative solutions. The selected building will operate for at least five years upon completion as a living lab for collaborative actions.

The objectives of the refurbishment are the minimization of heating and cooling demand provided by conventional means, while achieving thermal comfort conditions and quality of internal air and the design of a building which will be not only self-sufficient by means of renewable energy systems but, given the surplus of energy generated, will provide the ability for electrical vehicles to be charged without further cost. In this way, the carbon footprint of the building and the residents is going to be virtually eliminated, meeting today the 2030 requirement for carbon neutral buildings.

Potentialities and next steps:

Financial:

A feasibility study conducted with DistrictPH shows that there is a huge potential for stakeholders of the construction industry, to extend the approach to the 250 identical buildings that are in the neighbourhood, with the Tavros Project being used as the leading example.

However, no support is received from national institutions such as the government and foundations, while it is provided to a limited extent by some partners such as the Μunicipality of Moschato-Tavros and Greenpeace Greece). The main supporters in financial terms are manufacturers and individuals via private donations.

For the renovation of the pilot building, the budget is approximately 350.000€.  At the moment the Hellenic Passive House Institute has collected 85% of the total budget from manufacturers who will donate their products and companies who will donate the labor costs. The crowdfunding campaign, run by one partner, did not manage to acquire the necessary funds. One of the aims of the project is to create a feasible investment scheme, which can be repeated all around Greece.

Policy making:

The project takes place in a context characterised by a lack of energy saving policy and policy implementation. Therefore, this is a great opportunity for establishing new policies regarding building renovation, renovation funding schemes and partnerships between stakeholders like banks, state, investors etc, under the vision of making the renovation wave common practice.

The most challenging part is to bring every stakeholder to work in the direction of energy efficiency, such as Universities who are not yet teaching energy modelling, engineers and tradespeople who are not able to design a Low Energy Building, the State and the Municipalities, investors, banks and end users.