On Tuesday, April 3, the HAPPI project started with all the housing associations in the Sønderborg area.
It was marked at a residents’ meeting with speeches from Mayor Erik Lauritzen and Chairman of SAB Vivian Engelbredt. The project was presented to the attended residents, and subsequently the project start was marked.
The new EU project has resulted in a partnership across all housing associations, EUC-Syd, Danish Energy Management and ProjectZero.
“It is amazing that all the housing associations have come together to make a little part of the world a little greener,” Vivian Engelbredt said in her speech.
The partnership has gained approx. DKK 7.5 million to implementation. The money will be used to develop new methods for preparing and financing energy renovations in housing associations. Also, there is a task in how to gain better involvement from the residents in the projects.
Because of the HAPPI project renovations will be prepared in 3,300 tenancies across all housing associations over the next 3 years.
When all the renovations in the project have been completed, it will lead to energy savings in electricity and heating of a total of 11.5 GWh. That means that the housing associations CO2 emissions are reduced by 1,640 tonnes annually.
The housing associations have already energy renovated quite a lot and they have previously collaborated across, but with the HAPPI project, that cooperation is being further developed.
Mayor Erik Lauritzen said “Here in Sonderborg, we have shown time and time again that we are good at collaborating, and we are already far ahead in the ProjectZero vision and in many other areas,” and continued: “We also know that they low hanging fruits in the ProjectZero vision have been picked and now it is getting more difficult. Fortunately, the EU supports the project – and that is no coincidence that they do. We have shown that we are doing something,” says the mayor.