Energy-efficient housing refurbishment: Ukrainian communities explore Estonia’s renovation model

From 21 to 23 Octo­ber 2025, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ukrain­ian cities par­tic­i­pat­ing in the FELICITY II pilot project took part in a study vis­it to Esto­nia to explore best prac­tices in hous­ing mod­erni­sa­tion. Organ­ised by FELICITY II in part­ner­ship with the NGO Hous­ing Ini­tia­tive for East­ern Europe (IWO) and Eston­ian coun­ter­parts, the vis­it aimed to sup­port peer learn­ing and inform strate­gies for scal­ing up ener­gy-effi­cient hous­ing refur­bish­ment in Ukraine.

Over three days, par­tic­i­pants vis­it­ed ren­o­va­tion sites in Tallinn and Tar­tu to gain a first-hand under­stand­ing of Estonia’s approach. A par­tic­u­lar focus was placed on Estonia’s financ­ing mod­els, which com­bine grant mech­a­nisms with loan instru­ments to make large-scale mod­erni­sa­tion fea­si­ble. In Tar­tu, the del­e­ga­tion engaged with the Tar­tu Region­al Ener­gy Agency (TREA) and stud­ied the func­tion­ing of a one-stop-shop cen­tre.

The expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ed Ukrain­ian stake­hold­ers with prac­ti­cal insights into how to align tech­ni­cal, finan­cial, and gov­er­nance solu­tions in the con­text of res­i­den­tial hous­ing recon­struc­tion.

Back­ground: Under the FELICITY II pro­gramme, 20 invest­ment-ready projects will be devel­oped in Ukraine to sup­port the ener­gy-effi­cient recon­struc­tion of war-dam­aged mul­ti-apart­ment build­ings. Part­ner cities such as Myko­laiv and Kryvyi Rih will receive sup­port in design doc­u­men­ta­tion, insti­tu­tion­al capac­i­ty-build­ing, and the inte­gra­tion of cli­mate-smart solu­tions, con­tribut­ing to the cre­ation of resilient and EU-aligned urban infra­struc­ture.

FELICITY II is an inter­na­tion­al ini­tia­tive sup­port­ing sus­tain­able urban infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in East­ern Euro­pean and Cen­tral Asia coun­tries, aim­ing to reduce green­house gas emis­sions. The pro­gramme pro­vides tech­ni­cal and ana­lyt­i­cal assis­tance to munic­i­pal­i­ties to help them design and imple­ment cli­mate-friend­ly invest­ments in water sup­ply, waste­water man­age­ment, and ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings. 

FELICITY II is imple­ment­ed by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Inter­na­tionale Zusam­me­nar­beit (GIZ) GmbH in coop­er­a­tion with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank and with the sup­port of the Ger­man Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, under the frame­work of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI).