• Energy Research
• OA Publications Mandate: Yes close
• 2015 close

Buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse emissions in the EU. 80% of the buildings we will occupy in 2050 are standing today, with adequate measures, they have the potential to reach 70% reduction in their GHE gas emissions and energy savings worth €270 billion per year. The market for Energy Efficient Building product and services in Europe amounts €41 and growing at a 10.3% CAGR. However, building owners, when considering alternatives in a design or retrofit project, are challenged by high investment costs, uncertainty about savings and the complex nature of the domain. These are the main barriers preventing a wider adoption of building refurbishing projects. At Xylem Technologies, Austrian SME established in 2009, we are focused on the development of fundamentally new tools aimed towards a lower carbon economy. In lieu of the potential in EEB we started development of Semergy to provide the methodologies and ICT tools necessary to stimulate energy efficiency retrofitting. The architecture of Semergy is based on a novel and unique application of semantic web technologies (ontologies) that enable systematic retrieval and reorganization of data from multiple sources available on the Internet. No other commercial tool has this capacity and reduces the design effort by 70%. Building owners will be able to assess technologies available for their specific need with our Decision Support System that interactively compare retrofit options against criteria of cost, energy reduction and sustainability. Contractors will access a pool of building owners in our Marketplace and enhance efficacy of the design with the Optimization Environment. As a result, for EEB product and services providers, Semergy will provide a unique Product Placement Tool. They benefit from direct access to a curated target audience. Conversion rate is increased by being specified early in the design phase and just one sale compensates the cost of Semergy.

The development and adoption of renewable and sustainable energy has become a top priority in Europe, and is Horizon 2020’s most prominent theme. Research into new energy methods required to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint is an urgent and critical need, and is reliant upon a flow of newly qualified persons in areas as diverse as renewable energy infrastructure management, new energy materials and methods, and smart buildings and transport. Bioenergy is a particularly important field in this respect as it is at the cross-roads of several important European policies, from the Strategic Energy Technology Plan Roadmap on Education and Training (SET-Plan) to the European Bioeconomy Strategy to European Food Safety and Nutrition Policy. European development in this prioritised field is stalled due to a lack of qualified personnel, a lack of cohesion and integration among stakeholders, and poor linkage between professional training and industry needs. To address these problems, BioEnergyTrain brings together fifteen partners from six EU countries to create new post-graduate level curricula in key bioenergy disciplines, and a network of tertiary education institutions, research centres, professional associations, and industry stakeholders encompassing the whole value chain of bioenergy from field/forest to integration into the sustainable energy systems of buildings, settlements and regions. The project will foster European cooperation to provide a highly skilled and innovative workforce across the whole bioenergy value chain, closely following the recommendations of the SET-Plan Education Roadmap.

Focusing the Sun’s rays onto a piece of paper with a magnifying glass may sound as a children’s game, but it lies over the same principle that Photovoltaic (PV) technology, which can potentially lead Europe to obtain energy at a lower price and with the least environmental impact. In order to achieve it, PV’s efficiency and its associated costs need to be improved. REPHLECT project tackles both factors thanks to an innovative combination of advanced High Concentration PV (HCPV) technology and a close to the end market model. HCPV, due to its use of very high efficiency PV cells, is currently the solar technology with the highest cost reduction potential (85% in the last 5 years). REPHLECT’s HCPV builds up on the excellent results obtained in the FP7 project “NGCPV”, in which concentrator cells, module and system efficiency were improved. Now BSQ Solar, one of NGCPV’s partners, will take a step forward by designing a module that will reach a concentration of 1000X from the 820X developed by NGCPV, and at the same time including innovative features. To reduce the associated costs, REPHLECT will design components that allow local manufacturing and will migrate assembly lines to Satellite Production Centres (SPCs) located in highly irradiated areas to produce the panels close to the market. The only most IP sensitive part, the receivers, will be developed in BSQ headquarters in Madrid. In order words, REPHLECT intends to replicate the white box paradigm which introduced the ultimate commoditization of the computer hardware industry, by challenging the present industry model based in huge centralized upscaling in Asia. The project will be piloted in-house and the assembly satellite production will be demonstrated at the University of Al Akhawayn, in Morocco. REPHLECT counts already with letters of support of more than 15 prestigious companies which are very interested in its business model.

As wind energy is considered one of the most promising renewable energy resources, energy production technologies relying on wind energy are currently flourishing under the EU ambitious plan for 2020. Market demands to prepare a generation of researchers within the EU that are able to face the challenge of fulfilling the EU ambitious plan, to sustain the production of wind energy and to innovate and promote wind energy systems (WES) for the future needs, are clearly met in AEOLUS4FUTURE. The primary research aim is to develop a sustainable WES for a variety of EU needs. There are a number of detailed scientific and technical issues that will be addressed by the project starting from identifying the wind energy potential (off-shore and on-shore, including the built environment) to the design of a sustainable and highly efficient WES. Also the new challenging load conditions imposed on wind farms located on places where existing type of wind turbine towers are not suitable require the development of new type of support structures for wind energy converters. This fosters new structural concepts taking advantage of high performance materials e.g. high strength steel and novel maintenance free fasteners. In addition, while most research efforts and practical applications of wind energy have focused on large-scale wind installations in remote offshore or onshore areas, much less attention has been given to wind energy installations near buildings. The project has a major training aim to create technical experts who will be able to lead the necessary industrial developments in the WES, and have a broad overview of a new and emerging multi-disciplinary field. The project will thus enable a number of young scientists and engineers to obtain high level training in various technical aspects of the problem, to gain an overall understanding of how this work fits into the wider EU Directives and plans for the future and in doing so to improve their career prospects.

Rising energy bills is a relevant topic for households in the European Union. The share of household income spent on energy bills is growing and is impacting not only low-income households. Many of existing solutions for lowering energy bills for households are expensive and are targeted at home owners. They include new passive buildings, better insulation of existing buildings and/or generation of locally renewable energy (e.g. geo-thermic, solar, wind). Even though many already proven solutions exist that aim to increase energy efficiency and energy production in buildings via walls and roofs, windows are usually considered as a subject of energy loss and not taken into account for sustainable energy production. Could we optimize certain features of windows, such as blinds, and how should we do it? We believe that in the future, window blinds could add additional warmth in the winter and help to keep rooms cool in the summer; become a source of light; produce electricity; and when needed, block or let light in. By working on the Collect & Reflect project, Saulės vėjo aruodai (SVA) is making first steps to realize this dream by inventing blinds that can heat and cool. SVA, an SME from Lithuania, invents, patents, makes and supplies solar energy transformation products. Recently SVA has invented a break-through solution, Collect & Reflect(TM) thermal blinds, which can help save energy and thus reduce energy bills and decrease the carbon footprint of households. These blinds have innovative technology and special coating that make rooms warmer during the winter and colder in the summer. They help to decrease the need to heat and cool rooms, which results in lower energy bills and lower CO2 emissions. Collect & Reflect(TM) thermal blinds have huge potential to affect the window treatment market worldwide and transform traditional blinds into an active energy saving tool accessible for any household.

Following the EC SET-Plan Education and Training Roadmap, the concept of this proposal is to develop a joint PhD programme between universities and research centres, on the topic of Thermal Energy Storage (TES). The goal of INPATH-TES is to create a network of universities and research institutes to implement a joint PhD programme on TES technologies. The final result of such a network is to educate professionals on these technologies for the European research and industry institutions. The consortium includes 14 universities that will implement the joint PhD programme, two research institutions (AIT and PROMES-CNRS), three companies and two SME (Arcelik, Abengoa Solar NT, KIC InnoEnergy, UFP and LAIF), that will cooperate in defining the programme and in its implementation and deployment. The specific objectives of the project will lead to the qualification of professionals for the European research and industry institutions, bringing Europe to continue being leaders in these technologies. The partners in the proposal will be the core of a future larger network of excellent R&D institutions, and industries for co-funding and industrial placement, sharing infrastructure capacities, and enhancing mobility of students. The overall approach of the project involves a work plan divided in six work packages, being either coordination or support activities. Coordination activities: WP1 – Management and coordination; WP3 – Developing, maintaining and updating a PhD programme in TES; and WP4 – Implementation of the PhD programme in TES. Support activities: WP2 – External communication and dissemination; WP5 – Stakeholder involvement and extension of partnerships; and WP6 – Framework for monitoring and evaluation of INPATH-TES as well as IPR and regulatory issues.

The consortium behind SPARCARB – Global Lightning Protection Services A/S (GLPS, non-academic beneficiary), Denmark, together with the University of Southampon (SOTON, academic beneficiary entitled to award doctoral degrees), UK, and six Partner organizations – aims at providing an innovative international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral training network for four Early-Stage Researcher (ESRs), which will integrate in a single project (1) Science-based Training in material and electrical engineering; (2) Transferable Skills-based Training in carbon fibre, wind turbines, lightning protection technologies, business and innovation, and other competences; (3) and Research-based Training designed around cutting-edge challenges for the Wind Power Industry, which has identified the need for continuous research on lightning protection of large wind turbines with blades incorporating CFC structural components. The SPARCARB project aims at addressing the strong lack of doctoral-level trained human resources to push forward the research base in the field of lightning protection of CFC structures, building the proper environment for shifting paradigms in the Wind Power Industry. Specifically, the project will address scientific and technological challenges related to an effective protection of CFC wind turbine blades from lightning-induced damages, enabling the reliable use of very large and more efficient wind turbines. The goal is to train four ESRs to be familiar with both Industry (15 months at GLPS and secondments to industrial partner organizations for 3 months) and Academia (18 months at SOTON The doctoral training programme will be carried out according to SOTON’s criteria from which all four ESRs will obtain doctoral degrees. The envisaged training will provide a range of skills to all ESRs making them high-potential candidates to be employed at GLPS and other wind power industry players.

ENTRUST provides mapping of Europe’s energy system (key actors & their intersections, technologies, markets, policies, innovations) and an in-depth understanding of how human behaviour around energy is shaped by both technological systems and socio-demographic factors (esp. gender, age and socio-economic status). New understandings of energy-related practices and an intersectional approach to the socio-demographic factors in energy use will be deployed to enhance stakeholder engagement in Europe’s energy transition. The role of gender will be illuminated by intersectional analyses of energy-related behaviour & attitudes towards energy technologies, which will assess how multiple identities and social positions, combine to shape practices. These analyses will be integrated within a transitions management framework which takes account of the complex meshing of human values and identities with technological systems. The third key paradigm informing the research is the concept of energy citizenship, with a key goal of ENTRUST being to enable individuals overcome barriers of gender, age and socio-economic status to become active participants in their own energy transitions. Central to the project will be an in-depth engagement with 5 very different communities across the continent, who will be invited to be co-designers of their own energy transition. The consortium brings a diverse array of expertise to bear in assisting and reflexively monitoring these communities as they work to transform their energy behaviours, generating innovative transition pathways and business models capable of being replicated elsewhere in Europe. Deliverables will include a policy tool-kit incorporating contemporary best practice in promoting energy transitions at a Europe-wide level; a suite of innovative transition pathways and community engagement tools designed to stimulate dialogue and break down barriers to behaviour change and the adoption new technologies at a community level.

ESW proposal outlines the opportunity to develop an innovative technological process which will produce a new constructional material, having higher yields compared with the best alternatives in terms of technical results, economic and environmental footprint performances. That would make ESW advantageous competitor and feasible alternative as structural material representing the best performing material for supporting structure. ESW proposed technology uses Thermo Vacuum Wood (TVW) for manufacturing an outstanding new bio-material which has the potential to replace most commonly used structural materials such as concrete, steel and timber. This novel process will ensure the sustainable supply of raw European materials via extremely environment friendly new solution in construction industry, and will also provide participating SME with the opportunity to derive an ongoing income. The engineered ESW has better technical performances (more resistant, robust, seismic tolerant) in respect to raw wood, laminated wood (glulam), aluminium alloy, concrete. Upon successful completion of this project, the likely benefits to the partners, end-users and society will include: • The ability for manufacturing large-scale ESW constructional components • Significant reduction in carbon emission and consumes of energy via elimination of tropical timber import from extra UE countries • Reduction of toxic and pollutant glues used for manufacturing wood laminated constructional components; • Savings (up to 20% €/m3) for multilayer constructional components compared with wood (non tropical) and glulam ones. • Savings (up 70% €/m3) compared with constructional structures made of tropical timber or other thermotreated woods thanks of the use of local European (low market value) wood ESW is made okìf wood treated with Thermo Vaccum process and glue. Thermo Vacuum Process was funded by Eco innovation in 2012 and gives thermovacuum wood that is strategic for ESW material.

The targeted breakthrough of the HELENIC-REF project refers to the establishment of a new sustainable methodology for the water thermolysis at temperatures below 300oC and the immediate corresponding production of energy or fuels. The method is based on our preliminary experimental evidence of water thermolysis at 286oC in the presence of Fe3O4 nanoporous catalytic thick films, with the sustainable maintenance of the catalyst due to a new reduction method based on Lorentz force electrons generated by a magnetic field in the vicinity of the electric current heating the semiconducting catalyst. The method is used for the production of hydrogen and oxygen, as well as of fuels in the presence of CO2 in order to reduce CO2 to CO or even to hydrocarbons, (like Synthetic Natural Gas – SNG) via methanation.