The European Union’s new strategy on heating and cooling explores the potential of natural cooling methods

On February 16, 2016, the European Commission announced a new initiative in its community strategy on issues such as heating and cooling systems inside buildings.  The objective is to propel and accelerate the renovation of these new mechanisms.  For this, a list of natural cooling methods has been created that present great opportunities for energy saving.

The European Commission presented the first strategy for heating and cooling elements never before approached in the European Union.  The initiative’s objective is to create the most intelligent, most energy efficient and sustainable heating and cooling systems in buildings and the industry ever.  This may represent a great opportunity for the industry of natural cooling methods, as Europe wants to free its stock of community buildings from carbon derived elements by the year 2050.

90% of houses in the European Union are currently inefficient energy-wise.  This is easily understood as half the building stocks in existence were built before there were community regulations on this issue, and Europe has a building refitting rhythm that does not even reach 1%.

To prepare the transition toward low carbon consumption heating and cooling, the European Commission will review the Directive on energy efficiency, the directive on energy efficiency in buildings, and the initiative of intelligent financing for smart buildings launched in 2016.

For more information click here.

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The European project School of the Future has demonstrated the viability of creating energy efficient schools

The School of the Future project has arrived at last, financed by the European Commission under the FP7 framework and has counted upon four pilot schools in all of Europe and located in different regions (Denmark, Germany, Italy and Norway).  The project emphasizes how schools may be sources of exceptional energy efficiency, providing a high quality interior environment, while also being economically viable.

Through the renovation of existing schools and their power systems, the integration of renewable energy solutions and the creation of advanced management systems, the project wanted to demonstrate that the complete use of energy may be reduced by a factor of 3.

On the other hand, a 75% reduction in the power usage for heating may be achieved with an investment of less than € 100 for cubic meter, addressing the results obtained by the project.

Another of the project’s objective was to disseminate the results obtained through the students themselves from the schools that served as pilots, consociating families to the activities of energy efficiency and its results.

It has also equipped the classroom with tools to educate students, the faculty and service personnel in energy efficiency topics with the objective of expanding knowledge on an area with much relevance for the European Union such as environmental sustainability.

http://www.school-of-the-future.eu/

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The European Commission looks for the opinion of experts to establish a Board for European Innovation

Europe has carried out great advances in the last years to improve the degree of technological innovation, amongst which there are increases in investment, improvements in the regulations that affect this activity, strengthening of innovation markets and the creation of measures that support these initiatives at the level of the different states, like the structural funds for European investment.

Even with these efforts and the fact that Europe is a land of innovation, it is losing the race before other geographical areas such as China and especially the United States, which are capable of introducing more disruptive novelties created by their own markets.

The board wishes to include the community within the common objective of easing the situation and has called for an online survey so that all types of innovators, including those who do not normally work with projects related to the European Commission, may present their points of view with respects to the launch of the European Board of Innovation which may be designed to improve Europe’s capacity to generate and amplify the vanguard of innovations.

This European Board of Innovation could bring together and simplify all helping processes for innovation, help the new projects that arise from it, and provide guidance on how to improve the environment in the European Union, in areas such as politics, regulations and its practices.

By following the link you will find more details on the initiative and how to participate in the survey , which is open until 29 April 2016.

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ICPE MAIN ACHIEVMENTS – 2015

In 2015 Icpe was actively involved in all task and work packages that require the intervention of the demo owner. Starting with the pilot’s characterization, system architecture, building reference model, data acquisition, definition of BIM model, data exploitation, system integration and ending with the two version of the Energy Audit deliverable that was submitted to the European Commission.

Also during 2015 Icpe disseminated the project at several technical events as follows: Bucharest International Technical Fair (October), SWIC 2015 (October), International Electric & Automation Show (September), World Renewable Energy Congress (June), Innovative Technologies for nZEBs (May) and Integration of RES in the electric power system (May) and made a scientific paper in the Electrotechnics Electronics Automatics by ELECTRA Publishing House, named: “The New Building Energy Management System of the ICPE Office Building”.

In 2016 the work will continue with the project solution implementation in ICPE demo building as planned. The focus will be on providing feedback to the Energy IN TIME partners in order to better correlate the tools and solution developed with the particular task of controlling each individual demo building.

A big milestone for Icpe and for all partners of the Energy IN TIME project is the system integration in the demonstrator, with the validation of the tool developed and performance evaluation of the project solutions.