The city of Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria. It is divided into six districts, with 348 465 inhabitants. It covers 102 sq. km. and is the administrative centre of the Plovdiv region and the Central South region for planning in Bulgaria. The unemployment rate is 9%, and the social supportive system covers 6 046 families. The oldest segment – dwellings built before 1919, and thus over 80 years old – represents 2.35% of the total number of dwellings, which is to say 90,278. Dwellings under 30 years of age represent 49.7% of total dwellings. After 2001 new positive trends in the construction industry have been identified, especially concerning the energy efficiency of new residential buildings with regard to the implementation of a new policy and the application of the new regulations. About 20% of the dwellings are heated through district heating systems and the remaining 80% consists almost completely of single heaters (electricity, coal and biomass). Many private owners - mainly in the region of Plovidv (countryside) - use wood (wood waste from the industry) or coal for heating, hot water preparation and even cooking. A great part of the energy consumption in Bulgarian dwelling (30%) is low efficient solid fuels. The energy consumption in residential dwellings depends on the type of the building, not on the year of construction. The average (building-related) energy demand is 170 kWh/m2 year while for buildings erected with prefabricated concrete panels this figure is about 200 kWh/m2 per year. Electricity and oil fuel are the most expensive energy carriers, followed by natural gas and district heating. The average energy costs for households include about 12% of the household budget.

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In France, it is assumed that between 4 and 5 million households are facing fuel poverty, whether because they spend more than 10% of income on total energy costs, or because they impose self- limitations on their energy consumption and suffer from cold at home. A national plan and funding scheme started in 2010, aiming to help 300 000 occupying owners with low-incomes to improve the energy performances of their home from 2017.

In Frankfurt, since 2005, a new concept, “the Energiesparservice” (energy saving service), is being implemented. Unemployed people are being qualified as “Service Consultants for Energy and Water Saving Techniques”. With the necessary measuring and testing gear, informational brochures and sample equipment, the consulting teams go to low-income households and document the current usage of electricity, water and heat with the help of a comparison chart. With this, the customers can clearly see how high their average energy usage is.
The ACHIEVE project will give Caritasverband Frankfurt e.V. the opportunity to review best practice and share with other areas in Europe. It will also support the Frankfurt project in developing exemplary the consultancy in terms of saving heat energy and to share the results with the other partners in the projects and design the best approach. The German tenant association will support the project by using their network especially to house owner associations. The Energy department and the department of Social Services of the City of Frankfurt pledged to support the project fully.

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Due to growing prices of energy the issue of fuel poverty is becoming an alarming issue in Slovenia. The action in Slovenia will take place in municipality of Ljubljana with slightly over 276 000 inhabitants. In spite of the relatively high average salary (just over 1000 EUR in 2008), Ljubljana is also a centre for social problems. The unemployment rate is currently at the level of 10,7%. There are 642 households that receive subsidies for renting flats. More than half of the buildings date between 1945 and 1990; this characterizes the flat fund as an energy inefficient one. Average use of electricity in 2009 was 6134 kWh per capita and 2937 kWh of gas per capita, which is higher than the overall Slovene average. Apart from the data above, these are the reasons to select Ljubljana as the site of action in Slovenia: there is high concentration of social flats, which enables relatively easy access to them, wide circle of potential ‘energy advisors’ (from volunteers to unemployed people) is available and there is good access to institutions that must be linked to establish systematic solutions for the fuel poverty problem.

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