Project Description

In anticipation of an obligation for all Member States, arising from article 14 of the Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (COM(2008)19 final) to develop certification schemes for installers of small-scale renewable energy installations, QualiCert proposes a concerted action among different Member States on certification and accreditation of installers of small-scale building-integrated renewable energy systems. The project addresses the RE Directive’s precise requirement for certification schemes in each Member State that obey a set of similar criteria and recognise each other’s certification system.

To guarantee the broadest possible support to the future accreditation and certification scheme, QualiCert relies  on an interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder approach involving builders and installers through their EU associations, existing training providers and accrediting bodies with grassroots experience, the RE industry through its European associations, and a number of national energy agencies. This EU-wide concerted approach will transcend national discussions, which have a tendency at times to become highly political and even ,blocked, and promote a more pragmatic, result-oriented outcome based on the best identified methodology valid for the EU-27.

QualiCert is not only adopting a proactive approach through its anticipation of EU obligation set out in the Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources (RES Directive), the project also addresses the genuine market need for a comprehensive system to certify installers in order to guarantee quality installations and satisfied customers. This will, in turn, spur further market deployment in the sector.

QualiCert will result in the adoption of comprehensive schemes for accreditation and certification for small-scale building-integrated renewable energy, based on jointly elaborated and agreed success criteria in five Member States.

The project will first collect information in order to assess the existing schemes across the EU. Based on this analysis, a set of success criteria for technical, legal, institutional, financial and communication aspects will be distilled. The identified success criteria will be subject to reality checks in a series of six stakeholder validation workshops. The resulting validated success criteria will be summarised and explained in a manual. Then, political backing will be gained through national roundtables in five countries and with the help of the high-level steering group. Among the countries involved in the action, only France, Italy and Austria have functioning schemes for accreditation and certification of installers of small-scale renewable energy.

Political agreement should result in France, Italy and Austria adapting their current schemes to make them compatible with the joint approach. Poland and Greece should decide to set up their own schemes based on the joint approach. Once political agreement is reached, a series of practical implementation workshops will bring the methodology and knowledge elaborated in the project to the stakeholder communities in each country.

The whole action shall be accompanied by targeted communication and information activities, culminating in a final EU conference, which should motivate additional countries to join and apply the approach developed by Qualicert.

Work Programme

WP1: Coordination and Management (Leader: ADEME - Duration: 30 months)

WP2: Assessment of existing accreditation and training schemes (Leader: Qualit'EnR - Duration: 6 months)

WP3: Validation of success criteria and manual development (Leader: EREC - Duration: 6 months)

WP4: Adoption and recognition of common approach (Leader: ADEME - Duration: 30 months)

WP5: Implementation and promotion of common approach (Leader: CEETB - Duration: 30 months)

WP6: IEE dissemination activities (Leaders: ADEME/EREC - Duration: 30 months)

Duration of the project

30 months (July 2009 - December 2011)