District Vrieheide is situated in the north-east part of the municipality Heerlen in the Netherlands. The district has a total area of 15 Ha. and contains 1045 houses. Most of the families have low incomes. The percentage of unemployment is 50%.
A cluster of 837 single family dwellings, built in 1960, has the biggest problems with energy consumption and indoor environment. The current CO2 emission of this cluster is 8,220 tons/year (which is 86% of the total emission of the district). In this cluster 75% of the dwellings are owned by the occupants, 25% is owned by a property investments company. The latter has no interest for investments in energy efficiency measures as their policy is to sell the dwellings when occupants are moving.
In a preliminary study four energy retrofitting scenarios were elaborated showing that total energy savings from 40 to 80 % is feasible. 

The municipality of Heerlen has a responsibility to find a solution for lowering the energy consumption and CO2 emission of this descript despite the fact that the house owners have no financial means for investments in energy saving measures, even if there would be a possible benefit on the long term. Energy performance contracting by either a utility or a real estate developer, interested in rehabilitation of the district could be a solution. PGDEPW (Group Renewable Energy Real Estate Development), represented by Heerlen, has performed a feasibility study on new ways for energy exploitation by private companies (now possible in the liberalized energy market). Although these studies were executed for new buildings there are reasons to presume that these financial constructions are also applicable for retrofitting existing building stock.