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In the EU, housing retrofit rates have to increase to about 2.5-3% of the housing stock per year to achieve policy goals. The development of new business models and collaboration of SMEs in a fragmented market is expected to result in an increase in home renovations. This study presents a way to better understand the usefulness of the business model as a market device for collaborating firms for realising home energy renovations, by analysing literature and action research observations. Joint innovation decisions during business model development were traced back for 24 groups emerging from the supply side in five European countries. Commonalities for all groups were analysed to understand the usefulness of the business model. The business model development experiences show that effort is still required to support SME collaboration and to introduce basic marketing knowledge within SMEs, particularly to identify the customer segment and its values and to clarify the effectiveness of existing communication channels. Business models appear to be very useful for collaborative vision formation and networking and for clarifying the need of customer-oriented approaches that include project management and structured guidance of homeowners. However, they do not readily lead to the introduction of collaborative businesses, for which action plan are needed. Collaborating companies are advised to pay specific attention to identifying quality assurance and independent advice for home energy renovations. The research acknowledges the success of action-based research approaches to support collaborative business development and recommends its future use to speed up market development.

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The Solar Heating and Cooling Programme was founded in 1977 as one of the first multilateral technology initiatives («Implementing Agreements») of the International Energy Agency. Its mission is To enhance collective knowledge and application of solar heating and cooling through international collaboration.The members of the Programme collaborate on projects (referred to as «Tasks») in the field of research, development, demonstration (RD&D), and test methods for solar thermal energy and solar buildings.A total of 53 such projects have been initiated to-date, 39 of which have been completed. Research topics include:• Solar Space Heating and Water Heating (Tasks 14,19,26, 44) • Solar Cooling (Tasks 25, 38, 48, 53) • Solar Heat or Industrial or Agricultural Processes (Tasks 29, 33, 49) • Solar District Heating (Tasks 7, 45) • Solar Buildings/Architecture/Urban Planning (Tasks 8,11,12,13,20,22,23, 28, 37, 40, 41, 47, 51, 52) • Solar Thermal & PV (Tasks 16, 35) • Daylighting/Lighting (Tasks 21, 31, 50) • Materials/Components for Solar Heating and Cooling (Tasks 2,3,6, 10,18, 27, 39) • Standards, Certification, and Test Methods (Tasks 14, 24, 34, 43) • Resource Assessment (Tasks 1,4,5,9,17, 36, 46) • Storage of Solar Heat (Tasks 7, 32, 42) In addition to the project work, there are a number of special activities: A few exemplary non-residential renovation projects have demonstrated that total primary energy consumption can be drastically reduced, together with improvements to indoor environment quality through renovation of a building's passive and active systems. Because most property owners are not even aware that such savings are possible, they tend to set less ambitious targets. Buildings that are renovated to mediocre performance can be a lost opportunity for decades.The objectives of IEA SHC Task 47 are to develop a solid knowledge-base including: how to renovate non-residential buildings towards the Net Zero Energy Building standards NZEB in a sustainable and cost efficient way; ways to identify important market and policy issues; and effective marketing strategies for such renovations. • Identify building types with high potential for energy efficiency savings and the types of owners that are most likely to go for major renovation projects.• Identify the most important barriers and drivers in decision making processes for high ambition renovation projects in the non residential sector and how to address them.• Develop knowledge about which constraints are the most important and how to address them to make renovations attractive/affordable/cost effective and more available.• Increase the understanding of how improved non-energy benefits, as a result of substantial renovation, increase the value of a building, and thereby makes the investment worthwhile.The results of the subtask are relevant for these target groups:• Local and national authorities • Building owners (both public and private) which want to be frontrunners in net zero upgrading of existing buildings• Construction industry ...