Ten to twelve demonstration projects are being implemented in five partner countries – Austria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, North Macedonia, and Poland. These projects involve developing and implementing innovative technical solutions and alternative business, supply, and financing models for heat pumps in existing buildings, and evaluating them under real-world conditions. The aim is to simplify implementation, reduce costs and complexity, and specifically address key obstacles such as high investment costs, lack of financing options, regulatory uncertainties, and organizational friction losses.

To ensure feasibility and scalability, national Breakthrough Partnerships are being established that bring together relevant stakeholder groups from the fields of practice, research, housing construction, energy supply, financing, and administration. At the same time, suitable demonstration sites are being selected and a catalog of existing and new models is being created, enabling the appropriate implementation strategy to be determined for each site.

Uniform procedures for performance monitoring and quality assurance will be developed for all demonstration projects. These will include technical parameters and requirements for installation and operation. In addition, socio-economic aspects will be surveyed through structured resident questionnaires and interviews with implementation stakeholders in order to identify barriers and effective countermeasures.

The findings will be incorporated into the Fast Track Schemes. These are a collection of tailor-made resources such as manuals, online tools, guidelines, standards, and training courses. These are intended to enable high-quality heat pump solutions to be rolled out more quickly and on a larger scale.