Roughly a third of European households rent. They cannot put solar on a roof they don't own. They cannot install a heat pump without their landlord's permission. They are the households most exposed to energy bills and least able to act on them.
This is the split incentive problem. The landlord pays for the upgrade. The tenant gets the saving. So the landlord doesn't upgrade. The tenant keeps paying the bill. The boiler stays.
The transition cannot work if it only works for homeowners. A third of the population cannot be left behind because they don't own a roof.
In Flanders, a cooperative called ASTER has installed solar on over 9,000 social housing properties and is on track to put 395,000 solar panels on 52,500 social homes. Not grants. Not individual applications. One cooperative decision, financed collectively, deployed at scale across an entire housing stock. The tenant gets cheaper electricity. The landlord gets an improved asset. The cooperative funds the next installation from the return.
That is the model. The housing association as energy utility. One board decision finances ten thousand homes. No individual application. No split incentive. The deed and the benefit sit with the same institution.
Tenants buy or rent a segment of a solar park. They virtually consume renewable electricity in their home through smart metering — without any infrastructure changes at the property. The renter in an apartment with no roof access participates in a wind cooperative twenty kilometres away and pays a lower rate on their bill. No landlord permission required.
The upgrade is financed through the energy bill. The tenant pays a modest charge that covers the installation cost — but pays less overall because the saving exceeds the charge. The landlord invests nothing. The tenant benefits from day one.
None of these require a revolution. They require a regulatory framework that permits community energy sharing, a financing facility that makes housing association borrowing cheap, and a municipal campaign that tells every renter what is available.
The transition will not be complete — and will not be fair — until the renter is inside it.