The Stronghouse Final Conference
Stronghouse has been supporting homeowners on their route to energy efficiency renovations since 2019, using the Customer Journey and Neighbourhood Approach to achieve pretty impressive results. Stronghouse has developed innovative digital tools and strategies, and redesigned measures to assist homeowners on route from initial interest, to planning, financing and contracting energy renovation. Through seemingly small investments, Stronghouse has realized large impacts. Together the partners have realized the energy renovation of more than 20,000 houses, generated over 230 million euro investments and realized 36 kilotons of CO2 reductions.
Warm welcome
Tjisse Stelpstra, Executive Board Member for the Province of Drenthe and President of the North Sea Commission, officially opened the conference and, as political representative concerned with the energy transition in the region, he enthusiastically engaged with the international audience to exchange views, experiences and future perspectives.
Inspiring speakers
Throughout the afternoon, participants were treated to a mix of inspiring speakers representing both Stronghouse and the energy market. Geske Barendregt, for instance, presented the Customer Journey Approach in Drenthe and explained how speeding up the number of energy renovations not only means engaging with homeowners, but also involves businesses: craftsmen, energy advisors, real estate agents and other professionals. These are all crucial if we’re to get the work done.
Piet-Jan Dijkstra shared his expertise on behalf of Drenthe’s ‘Bedrijvenloket’ – a business counter for entrepreneurs in the region, while Danish partner Anne Branderup from Sondeborg shared the ProjectZero vision and business approach to the energy transition. During the course of Stronghouse, their results have been truly remarkable.
Green & digital
Serge de Mul, CEO of local software company Ultraware, also told an inspiring story of how their office building has been made energy positive, producing more energy than is used, by integrating heating, cooling, renewable energy and Domotica. According to Serge the green and digital revolutions should strengthen each other.
Concluding the line-up of presenters for the day, Andreas Nilsson and Pauline Nowik, our partners from Spring (Swedish software designers), shared their green finance tool which unleashes the potential of blockchain to guarantee, for example, bank loans financing the energy retrofit projects of homeowners. During Stronghouse, this tool was developed in close collaboration with Gothenburg University Now the proof of concept for a digital audit trail for green homeowner investments is ready, the next challenge is getting it to market.
Significant success
During his conference wrap-up, Project Coordinator Hein Braaksma once again stood still by the success of the Stronghouse collaboration and the amazing results the consortium has achieved, far surpassing initial goals. We have all learned that ultimately everyone has a role to play in the energy transition. By providing support for many aspects and on many levels, we can proudly say that Stronghouse has made a significant contribution to the European goals for CO2 reduction, the EU Renovation Wave and the Green Deal.
The Stronghouse legacy
Everyone has their own story to tell. You can learn more from the Stronghouse partners, their own journey during the project and their achievements by viewing the Stronghouse video playlist below. This is the Stronghouse legacy!