ACTIVITIES :: Sustainable Growth :: Energy Efficient Buildings

Energy Efficient Buildings

Buildings account for 40% of energy end-use in the EU and making them more efficient is therefore key in order for the EU to achieve its goals of reducing CO2 emissions by 20%, improving the energy efficiency by 20% and achieving 20% renewable generation by 2020.

The European Commission and stakeholders have set out what ICT can do to improve the energy performance of buildings in the report "ICT for a Low Carbon Economy. Smart Buildings" in 2009 .

Two key areas identified are that:

> ICT can be instrumental in achieving more efficient use of energy through simulation, modelling, analysis, monitoring and visualisation tools that are needed to facilitate a "whole building approach" to both design and operate buildings.

> ICT will also play an essential role in facilitating the implementation of policy and in measuring its effectiveness. The Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings introduces a general framework for a methodology to calculate the energy performance of buildings. Such data, if readily accessible, will facilitate the identification of common inefficiencies, best practices and opportunities. The ICT sector can deliver tools that are vitally needed to collect, process and manage the data, and present it in a standardised format.

To support the development and deployment of energy efficient solutions for buildings the Commission is also co-financing a number of projects and horizontal actions under the 7th Framework Programme for Research and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme . The horizontal actions are:

- ICT 4 E2B Forum: European stakeholders’ forum crossing value and innovation chains to explore needs, challenges and opportunities in further research and integration of ICT systems for Energy Efficiency in Buildings;
- Reeb: European strategic research Roadmap to ICT enabled Energy Efficiency in Buildings and constructions.

Find out more about the Strategic Research Roadmap and the Implementation Recommendations in the publication "ICT Supported Energy Efficiency in Construction".
This book, based on a collection of best practices, provides a vision in the form of a strategic research (roadmap) agenda with supporting implementation recommendations for ICT supported energy efficiency in construction.
The editors of the book are Matti Hannus and Abdul Samad (Sami) Kazi, both Chief Research Scientist, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Alain Zarli, Head of Division, Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment, France. The book has contributions from the main stakeholders from both the ICT and the Buildings and Construction sectors.

You can find a list of projects financed in this area here.
 

Join the discussion!

Data models and semantics to enable multi-system integration in Building eco-design and Building Energy Management systems

The ICT4E2B Forum, with the support of the European Commission, has launched an online collaboration space including a workshop around Data models and Semantics used for multi-system integration in Building eco-design and Building Energy Management systems. The goal is to foster the discussion on Interoperability issues and advancement in ICT for Energy Efficient Buildings.
The collaboration space has been set up to create
> a repository of data models
> an online discussion on formalization of data models
> a collaboration space for working out the harmonization of the ontology's of ICT for eeB.

 This will provide visibility to
- ongoing RTD projects on ICT4EE in Buildings with a dedicated space to data models
- researchers (who is who, institutions and persons)

Join the forum! Do not miss the opportunity to upload your Data Models and launch a discussion about them .

Register as a contributor and/or visit the website!

To register as a contributor send an e-mail to infso-ictforsg@ec.europa.eu and indicate if you are participating in a European Commission funded project.
To visit the site at http://forum.ict4e2b.eu:8080/share/page/site-index login as a visitor:
>username: visitor
>password: ict4e2b