Getting your RGE courses approved: Qualibat, Qualit'EnR, Qualifelec

On the energy-renovation market, a training organisation does not just sell skills: it sells the regulatory validity of its courses. For a course to count towards a company’s RGE quality mark (Reconnu Garant de l’Environnement), it must be delivered within an approved framework — otherwise it is worth nothing for the qualification file, whatever its content. Here are the approval routes, the requirements to anticipate and the mistakes that cost dearly.

Two approval routes depending on your ground

The landscape splits into two strands with distinct logics:

Energy efficiency (insulation, joinery, roofing, ventilation…): courses follow the architecture of the FEEBAT RENOPERF pathway, applicable since 1 October 2025 — a one-day cross-cutting module with the RGE QCM, then nine specific modules per category of works. Content and minimum durations are set in the annex to the French order of 19 December 2014 as amended by the order of 17 March 2025; training organisations and trainers are subject to a supervision and control mechanism, run with the DHUP (the housing directorate of the ecology ministry), ADEME, the bodies in charge of controlling training organisations, and the FEEBAT programme. The DHUP publishes a FAQ dedicated to the supervision of these courses.

Renewable energies (heat pumps, photovoltaics, solar thermal, wood energy…): here, approval is granted by the qualification bodies themselves — Qualit’EnR first and foremost for renewables, alongside Qualibat and Qualifelec in their respective fields. Qualit’EnR publishes an approval procedure for training organisations covering the programme, the trainers and the pedagogical platform.

In both cases the principle is the same: you do not invent your programme. You demonstrate your ability to deliver a syllabus defined elsewhere — a complete inversion compared with “free” training, and precisely what makes the niche valuable.

What the approval requires in practice

Three strands come up in every application:

1. The programme: strict compliance with the framework in force — since October 2025, materials built on the former RENOVE module are no longer the reference.
2. The trainers: technical and teaching skills evidenced (CVs, field experience, validation by the approving body where applicable). The trainer skills file you keep for your quality system serves directly here.
3. The practical means: for renewables, the pedagogical platform — real equipment, measurement benches — is subject to precise requirements and audits. Qualit’EnR provides for audits during the first years of the approval certificate’s validity, including audits triggered at random during sessions: the auditor evaluates the trainers, the organisation and the platform, checks the required documents and may talk with trainees.

The scheme’s implicit message: approval is not a file you submit, it is a state you maintain. Budget for platform maintenance, materials updates at every regulatory change, and full session traceability (attendance sheets, assessments, QCM results).

The technical platform is not a luxury: it is the heart of the matter

The most debated investment — the renewables technical platform — is also the best justified by research. Colin Gleeson, in a study published in 2016 in Building Research & Information (“Residential heat pump installations: the role of vocational education and training”), shows that the observed underperformance of residential heat pumps stems largely from installers’ qualification deficit, trained through short courses without a common syllabus or precise requirements on training centres (see the study). In other words: a scheme that imposes audited technical platforms and common syllabuses tackles exactly what makes installations fail in the field.

For your business model, draw the strategic conclusion: the platform is a barrier to entry that protects your position once crossed. Sharing a platform, renting one or undersizing it “to get started” gets paid for at audit time — with the approval at stake. Also think of the general obligations on your premises, which come on top of the platform’s own requirements.

Approval + Qualiopi: the inseparable pair

The classic newcomer’s mistake: believing the approval is enough. It makes your courses valid for the RGE qualification; it does not make them fundable. Coverage by public and pooled funds — OPCOs, and for craftsmen the channels linked to the FEEBAT programme (Constructys, FAFCEA, FIF PL) — requires Qualiopi certification, and the trend is tightening: the FAFCEA has reserved its coverage for certified organisations since 1 July 2026.

On a market of very small firms and craftsmen, a non-fundable course is a hard sell. The recommended sequence for a new entrant: Qualiopi first or in parallel, approval next — and the evidence you build for one serves the other.

Where to start

1. Choose your strand: energy efficiency (the RENOPERF catalogue) or renewables (approval by the qualification body, technical platform).
2. Start from the qualifications your future trainees target: it is their qualification body’s classification — see for instance the Qualibat page — that determines which modules they need.
3. Build the application: compliant programme, evidenced trainers, means described, and prepare for continuous rather than one-off control.
4. Lock in funding with Qualiopi so your courses are covered.

The full picture of the scheme — texts, steps, the link with Qualiopi — is on our page on RGE-approved training.

Take action

Training approval is a market that is demanding at entry and defensible afterwards: imposed syllabuses and audits, but durable regulation-driven demand. See our RGE-approved training page to frame your project — the free ebook walks through the steps, from choosing your strand to funding.