Building local skills for high-quality, community-led renovation

Greece is striving to address the challenges of the green transition and achieve significant emission reductions by 2030. The country’s building stock is largely old and inefficient, and the challenge is even greater in densely populated urban areas. According to Eurostat data, 19% of the Greek population reported being unable to adequately heat their homes in 2024, more than double the EU average.

Stefanos Pallantzas, Founder and President of the Hellenic Passive House Institute – part of the SPETE Consortium, one of the 10 enablers of the Support Service for Citizen-led Renovation (CLR) – tells us about the knowledge and technical gap they are committed to filling to foster citizen-led renovation initiatives in Greece.

How is the state of the art of building renovation in Greece?

Despite significant political attention, the reality on the ground is stark: the vast majority of residential buildings are old, poorly insulated, and heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Greece’s current renovation rate remains well below 1%—far short of the EU’s recommended 2% annual target—and existing schemes often lead to superficial upgrades rather than meaningful, performance-based renovations. 

Even though nearly €1 billion per year is available in public funding, the system is difficult for citizens to navigate. Programmes are usually designed for individual homeowners, require complex documentation, and rarely encourage deep retrofits. As a result, wealthier households tend to benefit disproportionately, while those living in inefficient or overcrowded buildings are left behind.

Collective renovation remains particularly challenging. Greece’s urban landscape is dominated by apartment buildings with multiple owners, where decision-making is slow and consensus is difficult to reach. At the same time, although the country has more than 1,700 registered energy communities, only 4–7% are genuinely citizen-led and capable of coordinated action. Most lack the technical, organisational and financial support they would need to initiate renovations at scale.

For these reasons, citizen-led renovation is not yet at an advanced stage in Greece. The concept is emerging, but structured pathways, technical assistance, and dedicated support services have been largely absent. This is precisely the gap that the SPETE Consortium seeks to fill with the support of the CLR initiative.

What’s the core purpose of the SPETE Consortium?

The SPETE Consortium brings together three organisations whose expertise complements one another and responds directly to the barriers faced by citizens:

• The Hellenic Passive House Institute (HPHI) provides the technical backbone: deep renovation expertise, building performance modelling, contractor training, quality assurance and monitoring based on the Passive House and EnerPHit standards.
• Electra Energy Cooperative (ELECTRA) contributes long-standing experience with energy communities, social mobilisation, and participatory governance. Through its national mapping work and involvement in DESMI, it understands the internal dynamics, motivations, and challenges of grassroots cooperatives.
• EKPIZO, as Greece’s leading consumer association, ensures legal protection, transparent procedures, dispute resolution, and citizen guidance—critical elements for building trust in a fragmented market.

Together, the partners provide a comprehensive One-Stop-Shop model tailored to Greek communities. Their goal is not only to support renovation projects but to help collectives develop into long-term, community-driven renovation actors able to operate independently.

A key focus is activating urban and rural energy communities, as well as apartment building collectives, and helping them become sustainable service providers. The consortium identifies the skills and potential of community members - including those unemployed or underemployed - and equips them with practical, accredited training in deep energy renovation. Trained members then apply their skills locally, building experience and a strong portfolio of completed projects. Over time, these communities can evolve into non-profit Social ESCOs capable of delivering reliable, high-quality renovation services both internally and to the wider market.

What is SPETE’s role in the Citizen-led Renovation project?

SPETE aims to demonstrate that a full-cycle, community-driven renovation process can function in practice: from mobilisation and capacity building to technical design, financing, implementation, and long-term organisational development. Its objective is to create frameworks that communities throughout Greece can readily replicate, including legal and governance tools, financial models such as pay-as-you-save schemes, training and certification pathways, mobilisation strategies, and quality-assurance mechanisms.

Which challenges do your collectives need to tackle?

Our three collectives represent different levels of maturity, each illustrating a distinct starting point for citizen-driven renovation:

Hyperion Energy Community is the most advanced collective. Based in Athens, it has already mobilised a substantial group of members and identified multiple buildings ready for renovation. It has secured unanimous interest from the occupants of a multi-unit residential building and gathered expressions of interest from around 20 additional households—approximately 25% of its membership. Hyperion has established working groups, strong governance structures, and a history of collaboration with HPHI, demonstrating clear readiness to move into implementation. 

CommonEn is a motivated collective with growing capacity. Located in Epirus, CommonEn has generated concrete interest among its members, including one multi-unit building, several apartments and single-family homes. Operating in a region with challenging climatic conditions and severe winter humidity, the community sees energy retrofits as essential. It has already partnered with municipal authorities, co-developed an agrivoltaic project, and launched a Living Lab for local innovation. However, in terms of citizens' initiatives, the process is still in an early to intermediate stage of structuring and preparation. 

Vrodados Energy Community is at an early stage, but has a high potential. Based on the island of Chios, the area is affected by wildfires. With 95 members and experience operating solar parks, Vrodados has a solid community foundation. Yet its citizen-led renovation capacity lacks technical know-how, established workflows, or an organised renovation plan. SPETE will play a decisive role in building its energy literacy and preparing members to identify and support vulnerable households.

By delivering successful renovations in urban Athens, mountainous Epirus, and insular Chios, SPETE will prove that community-led renovation is viable across diverse contexts. At the same time, it tackles one of Greece’s most persistent obstacles: the shortage of a skilled and trustworthy renovation workforce. Through citizen training and the development of community-based service providers, SPETE helps rebuild trust, reduce reliance on unreliable contractors, and strengthen local economies.

Why are citizen-led renovation initiatives important?

They are strategically necessary for Greece, as they address market failures by rooting renovation activity in community trust and participation, while simultaneously generating the skilled workforce Greece currently lacks. By empowering local people and transforming them into trained renovation professionals, the model bypasses the fragmented and often unreliable contractor landscape. It also creates service entities that are accountable to their own communities and committed to providing guaranteed, high-quality results.