Ami Crowther and Manon Burbidge from the University of Manchester travelled to Modena, Italy in October 2023 to attend the POWER UP Consortium meeting and the Energy Cities Annual Conference, this year on the theme of “Grafting Cities”. POWER UP is a Horizon 2020 funded project seeking to support vulnerable people to participate in the energy transition via social business models. There are six pilots within the project undertaking local initiatives including renewable energy co-operatives and energy efficiency renovations with energy-poor households. The University of Manchester’s participation in the POWER UP project is led by Dr. Saska Petrova.
During the Consortium meeting on the 17th October, they co-hosted a session on “Impact Evaluation”. The session, which was split into 3 sections, focused on developing the POWER UP project’s approach to impact evaluation.
The session opened with an introduction to what impact evaluation is and why it is important to undertake impact evaluation during research projects from Ami. As part of this presentation, 6 best practices for undertaking impact evaluation were outlined:
- Identify the data/insights needed
- Gather evidence throughout
- Don’t leave evaluation until the end
- Action vs. Impact
- Who benefits?
- Consider both positive and negative impacts
The second section of the session focused on the experiences of the ENPOR project and how they approached Impact Evaluation. ENPOR sought to adapt existing energy efficiency policies in seven European countries to account for the needs of the private rented sector in collaboration with a range of sector stakeholders. As part of the project evaluation procedure, a series of KPIs were developed, against which each of the adapted policies were scored. Examples of these included whether vulnerable tenants were consulted in the decision-making process, whether the policy led to capacity building amongst stakeholders, and whether the pilot policy led to improved energy efficiency of dwellings. During the session Manon outlined the process of undertaking the evaluation, and reflected upon the associated experiences (and challenges). She concluded the section by reflecting on the extent to which ENPOR engaged with the 6 best practices for impact evaluation listed above. The University of Manchester’s participation in the ENPOR project is led by Prof. Stefan Bouzarovski.
The final section of the session provided POWER UP pilots the space to reflect on the intended impact of their local interventions (both in relation to the project’s stated KPIs and any additional pilot specific KPIs). Focus was placed on how to measure the impact, including what data needs to be obtained over what timeframe and what actors need to be engaged to achieve this. When thinking about their impact evaluation, pilots were encouraged to reflect upon the experiences of ENPOR. The reflections from the pilots will be used to develop an impact evaluation template for the POWER UP project.
On the following day, 18th October, Ami and Manon attended the Energy Cities Annual Conference. As part of the conference, Ami facilitated the session on “Capacity Building: Energy for the Invisible Citizen” facilitating a breakout group on “Fixing mistakes in engagement and communications”, which Manon attended. During the breakout group, participants reflected upon the dos and don’ts of engaging vulnerable households. The discussions were informed by the experiences of the participants themselves, many of whom were experienced practitioners in this field, and provided insights that will support activities in the POWER UP project going forwards.