Energiesprong Global Alliance (EGA) is set to co-coordinate the market supports and incentives workstream within the new Task Force Offsite, part of the European Commission’s High Level Construction Forum (HLCF), the EU’s main platform for dialogue with the construction sector. EGA will do so together with dena, the German Energy Agency. The role builds on a decade of practical experience in the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and the UK. It is also proof that renovation at scale is possible, provided the market has the right structure to grow into.
That structure is the point. Subsidies have gotten offsite retrofit this far: from research pilots to a market now worth roughly €5 billion across Europe, tracked across Energiesprong-linked initiatives. But subsidies alone don’t build a market. They can fund a pilot. They can soften the cost of a first wave of projects. But they rarely create the demand pipelines, the supply-chain capacity, or the business models a sector needs to stand on its own. Left alone, subsidy programmes tend to produce exactly what Europe has today: strong pilots in 23 countries, and a scaled, self-sustaining market in only a handful of them. The Competitiveness Coordination Tool (CCT), and now the new Task Force Offsite, offer a chance to address that gap deliberately, rather than leave it to chance for another decade.
“For years, we’ve shown that offsite retrofit works when there’s a dedicated team building the market around it. Co-coordinating this workstream with dena means we can bring that experience directly into how Europe designs support for the sector, from the start rather than after the fact,” says Eric Aurenche, CEO of Energiesprong Global Alliance.
What Energiesprong does and why it works
Five countries already show what closing the gap between subsidy-funded pilots and a self-sustaining market looks like in practice.
In the Netherlands, where Energiesprong started in 2010, a dedicated Energy Performance Fee (EPV) was written into national regulation. Façade, roof and energy components have been standardised into product lines built in series. That’s the regulatory groundwork other markets are still building on.
Germany shows what sustained, long-term government commitment can achieve. A government-funded Market Development Team inside dena combined with an additional 15% KfW subsidy for serial retrofits, has delivered or contracted more than 5,000 units, with another 16,000 already in the pipeline. It’s the clearest case of national commitment translating directly into market momentum.
France has already achieved a 20–25% cost reduction compared to the first pilots, with 4,000 units completed as net-zero projects. That’s proof offsite retrofit can already compete on cost within a single national programme.
Italy, led by the non-profit EDERA, shows offsite retrofit can address more than one problem at once. The Italian programme combines energy and seismic retrofitting in a single intervention, reaching around 1,000 units despite a market repeatedly disrupted by short-term fiscal incentives favouring lighter, more traditional renovations.
Energiesprong UK applies the same model, adapted to the UK’s own housing stock and regulatory landscape.
Across all five, and in contrast to the 23 countries where offsite retrofit has so far only reached pilot stage, the common thread isn’t better technology. It’s a dedicated team actively building the market around it.
The numbers
The market tracked across Energiesprong-linked initiatives today stands at roughly €5 billion: around 40,000 housing units and over 100 non-residential buildings completed, under construction or contracted, in Italy, the Netherlands, France, Germany and the Baltic states.
That’s still an early stage. Nine countries identified by Energiesprong show real potential: Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Spain, Poland and the Baltic states. Together, the market could reach €50 billion by 2032, €300 billion by 2040, and €850 billion by 2050 in these countries alone. The potential could be even greater if extended to all 27 EU Member States.
A coordinated funding approach could help unlock that growth curve. In a follow-up piece, we will look more closely at how public funding can support not only projects, but the market conditions needed to scale them.
The role of a market development team
The mechanism behind this growth curve is what we call a market development team: a neutral, publicly funded structure operating per country, independent from any single company or ministry.
It works on three fronts at once:
- Aggregating demand. Individual building owners rarely have the volume to make offsite retrofit attractive to suppliers. A market development team pools that demand through framework agreements, volume deals, and direct project acquisition, so manufacturers can plan production at a scale that brings costs down.
- Activating supply. The same team works the other side of the market. It supports product development, helps manufacturers build capacity, and acts as a “key account” that connects supply-side innovation to real demand rather than one-off pilots.
- Working with national and regional governments and authorities. A market development team functions as a practical partner for ministries and public authorities. It translates policy objectives such as the EPBD and EED into implementable programmes, and flags the regulatory or administrative barriers, like building permits or cost-recovery mechanisms between landlords and tenants, that quietly stall renovation at scale.
Underlying all three is a deliberate approach to financing. Subsidies serve as gap financing, not a permanent subsidy dependency. They bridge the early phase, when volumes are too low and costs too high for the business case to work on its own, while the team builds toward a market that increasingly sustains itself through legitimate business models: verified energy savings, avoided maintenance costs, and long-term performance contracts. Germany’s experience, in particular, shows how far sustained public commitment can carry this.
This is, in short, why the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and the UK each moved past pilot stage while others stalled. Not better technology, but a team actively building the market around it.
The role of Energiesprong Global Alliance
Energiesprong Global Alliance has, for the past several years, functioned mainly as the connective layer between these national Energiesprong teams. It has shared knowledge, compared approaches, and helped newer initiatives avoid mistakes the more established ones have already made.
That role now expands As co-coordinator of the market supports and incentives workstream within the Task Force Offsite, Energiesprong Global Alliance moves from supporting existing market development teams to actively helping scale the model to new countries. It brings more than a decade of hands-on market-building experience directly into the European discussion on how to design and fund the next phase of offsite retrofit.
