Becoming RGE as an electrical firm: the Qualifelec route

For an electrician installing heat pumps, solar panels or control systems, the RGE mark is not a nice-to-have: it decides whether the customer’s quote will be subsidised or not. So the question is not “should we go for it?” but “by when, and by what route?”. Here is the real journey, with its two hard points.

What RGE adds to a qualification

First misunderstanding to clear up: « Reconnu Garant de l’Environnement » is not a Qualifelec qualification. It is a quality sign defined by the French public authorities, which several qualification bodies are approved to carry — Qualibat for general construction, Qualit’EnR for renewables, OPQIBI for engineering consultancy, Qualifelec for the electrical trades. The substantive requirements are common; the range of trades covered differs from one body to the next.

In concrete terms, RGE is an extra tier placed on a qualification already held, for a specific field of works. The sequence is therefore always the same: qualification first, mark second. A company holding no Qualifelec qualification cannot “apply for RGE” — it must get qualified first. Our article on the Qualifelec file and committee describes that first step.

What the mark adds comes down to three requirements.

Hard point 1: the technical referent

The company must designate a technical manager and have them complete recognised training in the target field of works, assessed by a knowledge test. The FEEBAT scheme is the best-known route for energy efficiency; other routes exist depending on the technology.

This is not a matter of sitting in a classroom: the assessment conditions the validity of the route. And it is almost always the project’s critical path, for a mechanical reason — the person you must free up for several days is exactly the one who keeps the sites running. Add to that the availability of training sessions, which do not open on demand.

Two pieces of advice that save months:

• Book the training before finalising the qualification file, not after. Both processes can run in parallel.
• Plan for succession. Losing the technical referent weakens the mark. In a small firm, training a second person costs money in the short term and protects you in the medium term.

Our article on the RGE technical referent and their obligations covers that role in detail.

Hard point 2: completed-works audits

This is the most important difference in kind between the qualification and the mark. A qualification is granted on file; the RGE mark is maintained in the field. The sign comes with a check on work actually carried out, conducted on site after completion.

Firms that fail this exercise are almost never firms that work badly: they are firms that kept nothing. Audits require you to identify the projects falling within the RGE scope and present them with their documentation. That implies a simple but continuous discipline:

• a quote and an invoice describing precisely the works and the equipment installed;
• technical data sheets for the equipment fitted, kept with the project file;
• before-and-after photographs, taken systematically;
• a way of flagging the projects concerned, so you are not combing through your accounts when the request arrives.

This organisation is set up on the day the mark is granted. Reconstructing twelve months of projects after the fact is painful and rarely complete.

Hard point 3: keeping it alive

The Qualifelec qualification runs on a four-year cycle with a certificate issued each year, once the body has checked the company still meets the conditions. The RGE mark follows that rhythm, with its own interim checks.

A practical consequence often discovered at the worst moment: an administrative oversight — an insurance certificate not renewed, a document not sent — can leave you without a valid certificate at the exact moment a customer is assembling their subsidy application. RGE is never acquired, it is renewed.

Stage	What is at stake	What to anticipate
Initial qualification	Technical capability, resources, references	A complete file before submitting
Referent training	Validity of the RGE route	Session calendar, staff availability
Award of the mark	Your customers’ access to subsidies	Updating your commercial material
Completed-works audits	Keeping the mark	Project traceability from day one
Annual certificate	Proof you can show customers and buyers	A schedule for certificates and attestations
Renewal	Continuity of the right	References covering the elapsed period

What RGE actually earns you

The commercial reasoning is simple: without an RGE company, a household customer loses access to the main French energy-renovation subsidy schemes. They are therefore not comparing two prices but a subsidised project and a full-price one.

It is still worth knowing what the literature says about how effective this work is, if only to speak honestly to a customer. A systematic review by Lauren Giandomenico, Maya Papineau and Nicholas Rivers published in 2022 in the Annual Review of Resource Economics aggregates 39 evaluations covering 23 residential retrofit programmes and nearly 141,000 retrofitted homes: the average measured reduction in energy consumption is around 7.2%, with wide variation by measure — insulation and programmable thermostats ranking among the most effective (reference).

On the French side, a working paper by Bettina Chlond, Claire Gavard and Lisa Jeuck published in 2021 by ZEW analyses the cost-effectiveness and distributional effects of public financial schemes supporting residential energy conservation in France (reference).

What this work says, in substance: outcomes depend heavily on the measure chosen and on the quality of installation. That is exactly what the RGE scheme tries to secure by requiring a trained referent and site audits — and it is also the best answer to a customer asking for a quote “just to claim the grant”.

Take action

Take stock: do you already hold a Qualifelec qualification in the relevant field? Is there someone identified to act as technical referent? Do you keep a traceability file per project? Those three answers set your timeline far more than the paperwork does. To compare the bodies issuing RGE by trade, see our article Qualibat, Qualifelec or Qualit’EnR; and for the full set of steps, the sheet on the Qualifelec qualification.