Stories
Success story: The cooperative boosting a renovation wave in Normandy
Community energy is key to action on the climate crisis. It can empower people, boost local economies, and reinvigorate communities. Community-led initiatives play an important role in the transition towards a 100% renewable and just energy future. Success stories of community energy projects can be found all over the world. At REScoop.eu we want to highlight these stories to further accelerate the movement towards a cleaner and democratic system. This month, we traveled to Normandy in northern France to meet the cooperative empowering citizens to renovate their homes for over 20 years.
Renovating your home is a daunting project. It’s expensive, it’s technically and administratively complex, construction works are famously unpredictable, and finding trusted companies can be a headache. And yet, accelerating renovations in Europe is deeply pressing for both environmental and social reasons. With seven in ten buildings in the EU classified as highly inefficient, the sector contributes significantly to pollution. (1) At the same time, climate change has exacerbated the issue with more extreme weather conditions and fluctuating energy prices, pushing energy poverty to the forefront – affecting as many as 40 million Europeans.
This makes massive renovations – and their funding – a big challenge in Europe. In France, following decades of campaigning by social and environmental groups, successive governments have stepped up efforts to tackle the issue, proposing an array of policies to incentivise renovations and support vulnerable households to take the first step. In the region of Normandy, one organisation stands out as a vital bridge connecting public programmes with citizens: Les 7 Vents.
Pioneering the energy transition in Normandy
The cooperative's story begins in the late 1970s in Normandy, when Michel Frémont, a pioneer ecologist, installed solar panels and a wind turbine in his garden. His initiative spurred local interest, eventually inspiring the founding of an organisation in 1998: “Les 7 Vents du Cotentin” named after the winds of this peninsula. By 2005, the organisation evolved into a cooperative. Today, it employs 23 people and its 127 members include four local authorities, 24 small businesses and 76 citizens.
Since its founding, Les 7 Vents has been at the forefront of sustainable energy initiatives in the region, creating the first carbon footprint report in Normandy. The cooperative works to develop new economic activities in the region, working towards a social, decentralised renewable energy system based on sufficiency, designed and driven by citizens.
In partnership with local authorities, Les 7 Vents was designated a local energy info point by the French energy agency ADEME in 2001, providing free, independent services to guide peoples’ renovation projects, until quotes were signed and grants accepted. Since 2024, Les 7 Vents fulfills additional services under a new renovation programme in France targeting energy poor households, (2) becoming an Integrated Home Renovation Service – providing guidance at every stage.
Guiding households every step of the way
Their work to support households involves different services. First, the cooperative provides technical and financial assistance at every stage of renovations, in all relevant domains: calendar of works, budget, choice of insulation and heating systems, air quality, renewable energies, financial aid… Sanjay Kumar, a project developer in Les 7 Vents explained the importance of their role: “People need to feel supported. Households feel alone, which could almost be described as a root problem. There is also an issue of trust as fraudulent companies prey on vulnerable households – but when things go smoothly, the difference between positive and negative experiences is huge!”
The cooperative also provides support to citizens in administrative processes: helping them know their rights and make sense of housing laws, taxes, consumer protection, legislation on energy poverty… Sanjay shared how this role is akin to social work: “We act as a link between public services and residents: many people need support, for example if they don't own a computer or have an internet connection. They also can lack confidence in dealing with renovation projects, or in discussions with builders.” This kind of support is especially needed as Les 7 Vents guides "very distressed" households, low-income residents living in very bad homes, requiring deep renovations.
Last but not least, Les 7 Vents does awareness raising and capacity-building work at various levels: organising exhibits, conferences, thermal walks around the city (to measure heat loss with residents), info points, workshops, but also trainings to renovate homes – even renting out useful tools for renovations to local residents. Every habit adds up: supporting households to adopt new habits in their home has helped some save up to €170 on their energy bills monthly.
All in all, the cooperative’s impact in the region is undeniable. Since 2001, Les 7 Vents have guided a whopping 20,000 households in their renovation journeys – and developed deep relationships of trust with local authorities and contractors along the way.
The road isn’t always easy, and political progress can sometimes come with new challenges. Case in point: increased public funding for home-owners has come with a wave of fraudulent practices in France, prompting officials to suddenly pause a new subsidy programme support last July – a decision that disrupted the cooperative’s work and forced similar organisations to stop their activities entirely. After a suspension of 3 months, rules to access subsidies were eventually made more stringent.
“Rules to access subsidies are extremely complex, and frequent changes in policies are difficult to navigate, and betray a problematic lack of vision”, Sanjay told us. These are important challenges to overcome, as public funding is crucial to accelerate ambition: a poll found that 38% of home-owners would not have renovated their home without these subsidies.
New avenues: Les 7 Vents invests in solar
Since 2022, fulfilling a 20-year objective, Les 7 Vents is also adding a new strand of work to its activities: setting up citizen renewable projects. Two 36 kW solar projects have already been set up with citizens in the region – one in a local goat farm, while the other aims to cut energy poverty through collective self-consumption in partnership with a retirement home.
Since 2021, the cooperative also runs a local citizen energy network to support local authorities and citizen groups in developing their own citizen-led renewable energy projects, making Les 7 Vents an inspiration for other regions. A wind of change is blowing in Normandy.
(1) BPIE, 2018