About

Welcome to OSS HABITAT

The OSS HABITAT project, implemented by Habitat Macedonia and ABC „Kreacija“, is aimed at improving energy efficiency in citizens’ homes. Through a system of integrated services, the project will promote energy-efficient renovation of homes in residential buildings (apartments and houses), allowing citizens to save money on household expenses while also contributing to environmental protection.
Supported by the EU’s LIFE program and created and coordinated by a Macedonian consortium, the project seeks to create a system of seven key services that will help approximately 5000 citizens enhance the energy efficiency of their homes.
The integrated service system will provide citizens with expert and technical assistance, as well as affordable loans in one place, to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, thereby contributing to the achievement of global environmental protection goals.
The project will build strong partnerships among citizens, manufacturers, and suppliers of building materials and systems for renewable energy sources, experts (engineers and energy controllers), financial institutions providing credit, government institutions, municipalities and other institutions responsible for local policies, chambers, homeowners’ associations and apartment building managers, as well as all others involved in the coordination and implementation of energy-efficient renovation measures.

Project goal

Through the OSS HABITAT project, a national platform for residential building renovation will be established, helping to achieve goals for reducing electricity consumption and mitigating the impact of climate change.

Target groups

The main group of beneficiaries are homeowners of units in apartment buildings and individual houses, with focus on those who want to make some energy efficient refurbishments, or to gain more information on energy efficiency and utilizing renewable energy in their homes. 

Targeted stakeholders, directly included in the project implementation and delivering the integrated home renovation services include national authorities, financial institutions, companies and technical professionals, and chambers of expertise, municipalities, building managers and building managing companies and other relevant CSOs.

Project partners

The complex organizational processes that each citizen or tenant should go through, especially in multifamily apartment buildings are just the beginning of energy efficient renovation process. Another challenge is the atomized market for energy efficiency and renewable energy sources integrated in one’s home renovation, which adds to the complexities of the building refurbishment. In addition, these potential customers are facing lack of financial tools to support their renovation projects. In Macedonia there is no centralized location for gathering information on procedures, available financial tools and schemes and other service providers.  

Habitat Macedonia and Kreacija throughout the years implemented different activities as line of their work, and their experience can aid the implementation of this project. Habitat Macedonia during the years has developed a lot of action plans and energy efficiency programs starting from organizational up ’til municipal level. However, the most valuable experiences and services that brings to this project are the established revolving fund for energy efficiency loans and the registry of all multifamily apartment buildings in the municipalities presented as web tool – RABA. Kreacija has worked on training and capacity building programs, has a vast experience in financial planning as well as developing and amending market policies.  

Taking into consideration the needs identified and the experiences of both implementing partners OSS HABITAT project was developed. There are 7 main services the project will offer to different stakeholders and beneficiaries: technical and social diagnosis or user mapping, energy audit and project design, coordination of renovation works, financing and subsidies and finally quality assurance of work.

Results

The expected results over a three-year period include: 

• renovation of 200 residential units and individual homes, 
• development of 7 services for home renovation trough the OSS platform
• over 2000 targeted buildings, creating more that 700 successful connection
• generation of investments worth 3 million euros, 
• energy savings of 3,5 gigawatt-hours per year
• production of 2.976 gigawatt-hours of energy from renewable sources annually
• reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 3.584 tons of CO₂ per year.