Kaunas – observer community
In Kaunas as well as in the rest of Lithuania and the other Baltic States, the majority of population is living in multi-family houses, dominated by old Soviet type, of which many require an overhaul reconstruction. Currently, there is a national programme for the renovation of multi-family houses. However, it is not very much advanced, and only basic renovation is applied for the multi-family houses. It is very difficult to carry out refurbishment to low-energy levels, as the financing possibilities in general are very poor. This has for instance been seen in the ECO-Life project, where retrofitting activities have been postponed at the moment.
The targets of the Kaunas DH strategy are following: decreasing the average per city heat demand in multi-family houses down to 84 kWh/m2 annually, in 7 fully refurbished blocks of multi-family houses, and in 1900 renovated houses until 2022. READY will facilitate and qualify the effort.
In the READY project, we intend to analyse and develop state-of-the-art technologies to be applied in the renovation process at a realistic cost level in order to have a breakthrough in the renovation process. Input will be provided to the policy makers with the aim of increasing the ambition level, and also different scenarios/concepts and levels of energy performance will developed, so that municipality and developers can select the realistic renovation level. Thus, in the frame of READY project we will thoroughly observe the technological solutions which will be implemented in Swedish and Danish renovated houses. The possibilities to implement those technological solutions in Kaunas taking into account local technological specifics, economic indicators and social practise. Moreover, the following preparatory work and market assessments will be carried out within READY:
- Sustainable community transformation and schemes
- Smart kitchen need assessment and market potential analysis in cooperation with IKEA
- Options and tools for low-temperature district heating solutions
- Waster efficiency solution in buildings.