• Energy Research

Citizen involvement is essential to develop the energy efficiency potential that can help reducing energy demand up to 20%. Young generations are a privileged target group to promote virtuous energy behaviours in the whole community. These issues are addressed by the Living Lab Schools4energy, aimed at increasing energy awareness among students of four schools in the Municipality of Potenza. The activities, carried out in the 2018/2019 school year, are based on a threefold approach: a friendly competition to reduce energy consumption (School Race), an artistic competition to think about energy in a creative way (Art4energy) and gamification as an alternative learning method (Play4energy).

Energy dependence and an increasing concern with climate change are currently major challenges faced by European Union (EU) countries. Implementing Energy Efficiency (EE) measures and Renewable Energy Sources (RES) are privileged approaches to contribute to reduce both EU energy consumption and climate vulnerability while contributing to implement the Sustainable Development Goals 7 - Affordable and clean energy and 11 - Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. However, the implementation of EE measures and RES options in Municipal Public Buildings (MPBs) is hampered not only by a general lack of financial resources, but also by an insufficient knowledge of public authorities on the buildings' features and consumption, as well as on the potentially most effective options to improve their energy performance. One of the challenges for making the public building sector more sustainable is to be able to develop solutions adapted to various regional contexts, level of urbanization of the area, availability of energy resources and types of buildings. Moreover, publics buildings with different usage, (i.e. swimming pools, health centres, sports centre, schools, office buildings) have associated different energy services (e.g. space heating and cooling, water heating, lighting, other electric equipment) and consumption profiles. Public authorities have to manage varied building stocks and thus need to enhance their institutional capacity in the field of EE and use of RES to contribute to the Energy Performance of Buildings and the Energy Efficiency EU Directives. The PrioritEE project, funded by the Interreg MED programme, aims at strengthening the capacities of public administrations in selecting and implementing efficient and cost-effective energy solutions in their public building stock. This work describes the Excel based Decision Support Tool (DST) under development for the ranking and selection of measures for improving EE and increasing RES adoption in MPBs. The tool is being co-developed, validated and tested by local public authorities and professional institutions from five country pilots with the aim of reducing energy consumption and prioritize EE investments. The pilots are located in regions with significant climatic differences: Potenza, Italy (HDD=1762); Leziria do Tejo, Portugal (HDD=893); Teruel, Spain (HDD=1725); West Macedonia, Greece (2508) and Karlovac, Croatia (2364); allowing to test the DST in different European contexts. A comprehensive set of key performance indicators is an integral part of the DST and will be used to compare different scenarios of interventions and monitor energy consumption, assessing the effects of the proposed strategies. The DST components, namely its main features (e.g. analytical database), building typologies and energy services addressed, as well as the results obtained to over 100 MPBs within the five pilot regions will be discussed as a ranking per investment (total, per user, per m2, payback period), and energy savings (total, per user, per m2), among others. Moreover, a focus on how results are being used by local public authorities will be presented, evaluating the DST transferability to other countries, cities and regions.

Making public buildings smarter and more energy efficient requires tailored solutions to overcome the main barriers in the implementation of suitable technology options in a large variety of building types. The PrioritEE project aims to strengthen the policy-making and strategic planning competences of local and regional public authorities in the energy management of Municipal Public Buildings (MPB). This paper focuses on the PrioritEE toolbox and, in particular, on the Decision Support Tool (DST) for assessing the cost-effectiveness of a predefined set of Energy Efficiency (EE) and Renewable Energy Sources (RES) measures and prioritize investments in terms of three main indicators: costs, energy savings and avoided CO2 emissions. Some preliminary results obtained by the application of the DST in three pilots show the main advantages for a municipality to use this tool and the wider applicability both within and outside the Mediterranean area.

The purpose of this work was to evaluate the potential of Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and the Fisher–Shannon method to analyse NDVI MODIS time series and to capture and estimate inner vegetation anomalies in forest covers. In particular, the Fisher–Shannon method allows to calculate two quantities, the Fisher Information Measure (FIM) and the Shannon entropy power (SEP), which are used to characterise the complexity of a time series in terms of organisation/disorder. Pilot sites located both in urban (Milano, Torino, and Roma) and peri-urban areas (Appia Park, Castel Porziano, and Castel Volturno) were selected. Among the six sites, Roma, Castel Porziano, and Castel Volturno are affected by the parasite Toumeyella parvicornis. The time series was analysed using the products available in Google Earth Engine. To explore and characterise long-term vegetation dynamics, the time series was analysed using a multistep processing chain based on the (i) normalisation of the satellite time series, (ii) removal of seasonality and any other periodical cycles using SSA, (iii) analysis of the de-trended data using the Fisher–Shannon statistical method, and (iv) validation through comparison with independent data and ancillary information. Our findings point out to a clear discrimination between healthy and unhealthy sites, being the first (Milano, Torino, Appia) characterised by a larger FIM (lower SEP) and the second (Roma, Castel Porziano, Castel Volturno) by a lower FIM (larger SEP). The results of the investigations showed that the use of the SSA and Fisher–Shannon statistical methods coupled with the NDVI time series of the MODIS satellite made it possible to effectively identify and characterise subtle but physically significant signals veiled by seasonality and annual cycles.

In the Mediterranean area most of the public authorities need to enhance their institutional capacity in the field of Energy Efficiency (EE) and use of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in order to contribute to the Energy Performance of Buildings and the Energy Efficiency Directives, developing solutions suited to various regional contexts. The PrioritEE project, funded by the Interreg MED programme, aims at reinforcing the capacities of public administrations in selecting and implementing eco-friendly and cost-effective energy planning measures. This paper aims to describe the main efforts carried out by local public authorities and professional institutions from five MED countries (Italy, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Croatia) in order to reduce energy consumption and prioritize EE investments in Municipal Public Buildings (MPBs). In particular, it focuses on the methodological framework describing the main components of the proposed toolbox, the main objectives and expected outcomes but also the current achievements and the way forward.

Schools4energy is a laboratory of sustainable experimentation for the implementation of good practices that aims to promote conscious and virtuous energy behaviours and energy efficiency in the schools. The activities, developed in the framework of the INTERREG MED PrioritEE project, involve the students, the teachers and the staff personnel of Primary and Lower Secondary Schools of the Municipality of Potenza. The Schools4energy laboratory is made up of three integrated modules (School race, Artists for energy, Energy at stake) based on different methodologies (analytical methods, co-creation and gamification) in order to increase the interest and the involvement of students and enhance their preferences and talents. The proposed activities pursue multiple objectives: to increase students’ knowledge and skills on energy, to raise awareness on energy consumption, to encourage energy consumption reduction, to promote behavioural changes.

Energy consumption can be significantly reduced by targeting consumers behaviour to achieve sustained energy savings and promote sustainable consumption patterns. In this context, the younger generations are a privileged target group to promote virtuous energy behaviours in the whole community. This paper describes the Schools4energy initiative, a program developed within the Interreg MED PrioritEE project, aimed at increasing energy efficiency in municipal public buildings by raising energy awareness in public schools while demonstrating the effectiveness of pupils' engagement to promote energy savings through virtuous behaviours. Schools4energy was based on a multifold "learning by doing" methodology implemented in the Living Lab of the Potenza case study. During the 2018/2019 school year, children aged between 3 and 14 belonging to four primary and middle schools owned by the Municipality of Potenza (Southern Italy) were involved in three sets of activities designed to valorise the power of young generation in promoting more conscious behaviours: a competition among schools to reduce energy consumption (School Race) based on the adoption of good energy practices based on a common Energy Charter, an artistic competition among students to support creative thinking (Art4energy) and gamification as an alternative method to learn about energy (Play4energy). The consumptions of natural gas and electricity were monitored from August 2018 to April 2019 to highlight the effects of the adoption of Energy Charter in terms of energy and money saved. Data analysis highlighted different trends among the participating schools, underlining their different commitment and the infrastructural barriers. Despite the harsher winter, an average decrease of 4% in natural gas consumption was observed in the school in which energy saving measures complemented technical interventions and a limited increase in electricity consumption (between 0.5% and 4.3% per capita), which led to savings on the energy bill of about 1122 Euro. The enthusiastic participation of the children highlighted the great potential of educational programmes in driving a steady change of mentality in the society.

Wildfires are critical natural hazards, both in the Mediterranean and boreal regions of Europe, causing significant environmental and economic damages and losses. Operational drought and fire risk forecast services on sub-seasonal, seasonal and climatic scale allow fire protection authorities to increase preparedness and response in drought and fire related emergencies and to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies in these regions.