We are now up to cruising speed as we head into our second year and the consortium is intensively collaborating to fine-tune and plan the interventions at the demonstration sites.
Over the last few months, all the project partners as well as various external stakeholders have been involved in the preliminary activities of the intervention packages. Each demo site has been organising its tender and public grant procedures and reaching out to local residents to obtain their buy-in. In Valladolid for instance, the work programme and quality control plan have been defined and the demo team are now in the negotiation stage with the building owners who are to contribute financially to the interventions. Both Genoa and Kartal demo sites are fully engaged in selecting companies for retrofitting operations and have been organising on-site inspections to facilitate submissions.
As this tendering process unfolds, we are also determining and consolidating the “project management teams” who will work together to deliver on the goals set. The teams will be made up of a BIM managers, energy experts and quality controllers to ensure consistency across all the complex assignments and results areas.
The focus is therefore on the final preparations before the intervention packages start over the coming months. In January, Kartal Municipality hosted our third periodic meeting which brought together the entire consortium. It was planned to coincide with a number of project milestones and was pivotal as we set about the actual retrofitting phase. In this issue, our partners ONYX and VIVA will be in the spotlight, and we will be featuring interviews on the multifold challenges of retrofitting on district level and on how third parties play role in making buildings more energy efficient.
With best wishes,
Rubén Garcia Pajares
R2CITIES Coordinator
Fundación CARTIF