ZuidtrAnt cv-so (Belgium)

About the Pilot

ZuidtrAnt is an energy cooperative that works towards the energy transition by working with an array of technologies: solar roofs, projects in schools, renovation coaching, battery storage, energy positive circular HUBs. Through its current Burenwerf project, ZuidtrAnt aims to renovate several residential buildings in close collaboration with the municipalities. Under this project, it has already renovated 90 homes and reached 4600 residential buildings with key information. They plan to continue expanding in this direction. Through the support service of CLR, they would like to explore more in detail their business model, lowering connection costs so that more citizens can access the service. Furthermore, they are keen to learn about IT tools and methodologies for monitoring the impact of their renovations. The total foreseen investment for the extensions of the heat network is of 3,998,849€, a cost which, following their current model, should be borne in combination by residents and municipalities.

Our support

Within the framework of the support service, we hope to:

• understand needs of support beter: we have a good understanding of the needs and by each new project keep on elaborating our experience, however we do not have resources /time nor budget to do efficient surveys on needs and preferred support. A professional survey could help us in our policy advocating role and can be used as a way to get better access to municipalities that need convincing to collaborate.
• local ecosystem: we already established joined purchase for f.e. solar and flooring insulation
• an overview of legal and regulatory aspects could make our job more efficient. f.e. within the municipality of Schoten we have a Burenwerf project in an area where the houses have specific regulations regarding the look of the facade
• an easy to use tool for the impact of our Burenwerf projects wouls also improve our way of communicating with municipalities or funding insitutions
• as we currently rely on the budgets within the burenpremie and the changes these available budgets will undergo in the upcoming period, we are in need of looking into different business models. This also implies an adaptation in finding means to engage the professionals that write the renovation advice and execute the necessary hiuse visits.
• as a relatively smaller energy cooperative the need for assistance on communication and marketing campagnes is significant as is the need for IT tools for efficient monitoring of impact.