• Energy Research
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Investments in energy efficiency in the residential sector (27% of EU final energy demand) may also provide economic benefits at different levels of the economy. These benefits may not be realized because of barriers, which are typically reflected in implied discount rates. BRISKEE (Behavioural Response to Investment Risks in Energy Efficiency) provides evidence-based input to energy efficiency policy design and evaluation, thereby supporting the market uptake of energy efficiency technologies in the EU residential sector. It contributes to the work programme by addressing the interrelations between microeconomic factors, sectoral energy demand and macroeconomic effects, relying on a consistent methodological framework implemented in 5 work packages: • Provide empirical evidence for the magnitudes of discount rates accounting for differences across households, technologies and countries, and assess their effects on the diffusion of efficiency technologies in the EU (micro-level). A multi-country survey (1000 interviews per country) will be carried out and analyzed econometrically. • Explore the impact of time discounting and risk preferences (and of policies affecting those factors) on the diffusion of energy efficient technology and energy demand in the EU residential sector until 2030 (meso-level). Established bottom-up vintage stock models will be employed for appliances (FORECAST-Residential) and for buildings (Invert/EE-Lab). • Explore the macro-level impacts of changes in microeconomic decision-making and of energy efficiency policy on employment, GDP and exports in the EU until 2030. This involves simulations with an established macro-economic model for the EU (ASTRA). • Provide evidence-based recommendations for key energy efficiency policies and input for impact assessments and policy analysis at the three levels of analysis. • Communicate and disseminate empirical findings to policy makers, national experts, the research community and the general public.

The Integrated Roof Wind Energy System (IRWES) is the breakthrough solution overcoming all shortcomings of existing renewable energy solutions. IRWES is a roof-mounted, elegant structure with an internal – nonvisible – turbine making smart use of aerodynamics. It is more efficient than any existing urban windmill, and more efficient per area than PV panels when mounted on roofs higher than 20m. This novel system has highest efficiency based on IP protected and tested technology (TRL6). It reduces the payback time by effectively producing electric power in both high and low wind speeds resulting in both more efficiency and operational hours. The Netherlands counts 35.000 buildings suitable for application with attractive ROI, while greatest impact is achieved in Europe where 1/6 of the population lives in high-rise buildings. Customers have already committed to 25 units after demonstration. IRWES is a business opportunity ready for large growth, to serve the – until now – unreachable segment of local renewable energy supply to high buildings, while seamlessly aligning with the Horizon 2020 Work Programme objectives. Moreover, IRWES addresses European and global challenges such as reducing the risk of carbon “lock-in”, offering sustainable and affordable alternatives to rising electricity prices as well as closing the gap between R&D, innovation and entrepreneurship. Its market excellence is defined by meeting the important customer demands differentiating in aesthetical integration and customization; creating more value as an outstanding, attractive solution. Our business objectives have been outlined in 8 Work Packages to prepare the IRWES mass-market launch, positioning it as a game changing solution on the European market. Based on rigorous studies and feasibility assessments, already performed, we present a solid business plan that incorporates a commercialization strategy and a financing plan to underpin the foreseen market launch and growth strategy of IRWES.

URBAN LEARNING gathers capitals and other large cities across Europe facing the common challenge of considerable population growth while being committed to significantly reduce fossil energy consumption and CO2 emissions. E.g. Stockholm grew by more than 12.000 people / a (1.5%); in the next 10 years Vienna has to build for 200.000 new people. Efficient and effective planning processes will be crucial for climbing this mountain. Vienna, Berlin, Paris, Stockholm, Amsterdam/Zaanstad, Warsaw and Zagreb aim to enhance the capacity of their local authorities on integrative urban energy planning, as response to new challenges from EU EPBD and RES directives as well as to changes of technologies and market conditions and the pressure to provide sufficient, affordable homes. The focus is put on the governance processes related to the (re-)development of concrete sites. While some cities already started ambitious urban development projects, the institutionalisation of these experiences is missing - despite awareness and willingness, due to lack of knowledge, lack of time and the need for collaboration across departments, which is not a common practice in many administrations in Europe. External stimulus is needed to overcome these barriers, and to address these issues collectively with external key stakeholders, such as DNOs and energy suppliers, and across cities. Focus will be on multi-disciplinary learning – concentrating on innovative technological solutions, instruments and tools as well as on innovative governance elements - and to capitalise this learning to institutionalise integrative urban energy planning. Improving the governance processes is expected to have significant energy impacts on homes and workplaces to be built and refurbished for over 3 million more people in the participating cities in the next 20 years: more than 1.700 GWh/a of energy savings and over 2.000 GWh/a renewable energy produced. Special emphasis is put on knowledge transfer to 150 more cities.

The offshore wind market is a young and rapidly growing market, whose current project pipeline for 2025/30 would equal nearly 80 nuclear plants, mostly in Europe. The next decade and beyond may average 1,000 offshore towers/year worldwide, with an overall investment volume around 15-20.000 M€/year. This growing sector faces technological challenges, as it is set to move into deeper waters further offshore while being able to reduce the costs in order to reach a competitive LCOE (levelised cost of energy). For water depths above 40m (70% of the future market) approximately 40-50% of investment corresponds to the substructure (foundation and tower). Therefore a significant cost reduction in foundation/tower would drastically improve the overall cost of offshore wind energy. This project intends to develop and demonstrate in operative environment a full scale prototype of a revolutionary substructure system for offshore wind turbines. The concept consists in a self-installing precast concrete telescopic tower which for the first time ever shall allow for crane-free offshore installation of foundations, towers and turbines, thus overcoming the constraints imposed by the dependence on offshore heavy-lift vessels. It will allow for a full in-shore preassembly of the complete system, which is key to generate a highly industrialized manufacturing process with high production rates and optimized risk control. The main benefits expected are: • 30-40% cost reduction (both CAPEX and OPEX). • Large water depth applicability range for deep offshore (>45m water depth). • Supports increased turbine size (5-8MW). • Allows for large scale fast industrial deployment of foundations. • Reduces dependence on costly and scarce installation vessels. • Improved asset integrity (durability) This solution will imply a radical step forward for cost-effective and industrially deployable deep offshore wind.

Hematite is a promising photoanode material for harvesting solar energy by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. It has a favorable bandgap energy (2.1 eV), good catalytic activity for water oxidation, low cost, is chemically stable in alkaline solutions and environmentally friendly. However, its water splitting efficiency is limited by electron-hole recombination length and it produces a below threshold photovoltage. The key to increasing the recombination length is supressing defects such as grain boundaries or surface roughness of the photoanode. The second issue is successfully resolved by coupling the photoelectrolytic cell to a photovoltaic cell, a so-called tandem cell with theoretically higher efficiency owing to optimal use of the solar spectrum. Both of these drawbacks are accounted for in this project. The aim of this project is to optimize the water photoelectrolysis performance of the photoelectrolysis-photovoltaic tandem-cell device by tailoring the microstructure of the thin film hematite photoanods, and up scaling from the laboratory scale to a prototype device. Fabrication of an efficient water-splitting cell is challenging as it consists of several thin film layers. Each of these layers impacts on the performance of the water-splitting tandem-cell. Up scaling from the lab scale to the prototype scale (10x10cm2) will be carried out in cooperation with PVComB in Germany. This poses entirely different challenges, creating the need for an adapted fabrication sequence and deposition conditions that ensure the adhesion of the ceramic and metal thin film layers. At the end of this project, I personally will have gained expertise in advanced microstructural analysis technique and also in the leadership role, which will enable me to take the next step in my carrier. And, we will have built a fully functional, fabrication-ready device for hydrogen production directly from solar energy. A great leap forward into a society based on renewable resources.

Water and energy are highly interdependent and are both crucial to human well-being and sustainable socio-economic development. 1.1 billion people worldwide do not have access to a safe source of drinking water; 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity; 5 billion people worldwide still have no access to internet. Our innovative solution Watly addresses the increasing global demand for safe sources of drinking water and green off-grid electricity, by combining highly efficient photovoltaic panels with thermal energy production, used to desalinate and purify water in-situ. Watly also provides internet connectivity and mobile chargers in remote areas. Our customers are: Governments and public institutions, NGOs, mobile hospitals, military organizations, hotels/resorts/businesses in remote destinations, oil platforms, etc. WATLY’s success depends on the fulfilment of the following objectives: - Scale-up Watly 2.0 to Watly 3.0 able to treat up to 4,500l of water and produce 70 kWh of electricity per day, boosting its readiness level from TRL7 to TRL9 - Certification and live Demonstration of Watly 3.0 - Succesfull final Business Innovation Plan and commercialization activities for Watly 3.0 The investment cost of Watly 3.0 could be a strong barrier for the public sector and NGOs. To overcome this barrier Watly will include additional features and 2 kinds of revenues channels for the Watly operator: • Vending Machine: It is a model created for the public sector of remote areas, with medium-low purchasing power. Watly will include specific hardware to act as a vending machine, which will give a certain amount of water/energy/connectivity in exchange of a small economic input • Lively Donors: It is a model strictly created for NGOs. Watly will integrate a web platform and a mobile App which will allow external donors, i.e. philanthropists from rich countries, to remotely donate money giving a certain amount of water/energy/connectivity to the needy person

Improving energy efficiency can deliver a range of benefits to the economy and society. However, energy efficiency programmes are often evaluated only on the basis of the energy savings they deliver, without considering the many other socio-economic and environmental intangible benefits delivered. As a result, the full value of energy efficiency improvements in both national and global economies may be significantly underestimated. The main aim of IN-BEE is to address the theme of energy efficiency and to describe and provide evidence for the many intangible benefits of improving energy efficiency through a multi-disciplinary approach, combining methods, datasets, and techniques from cutting edge research in law and economics, humanities and consumer behavior, regulation and environmental sciences, as well as engineering. The overall outcome of IN-BEE is to consolidate a set of policy recommendations for the EU and public/private institutions in charge of promoting energy efficiency, competitiveness and environmental and social sustainability. IN-BEE will impact on both consumers (residential and companies) and policy makers, by: • Developing a set of indicators to measure intangible benefits of energy efficiency • Developing Key Performance Indicators to assess the impact of energy efficiency strategies • Studying relevant cases and identifying best practices • Bridging policy makers and researchers through a web platform • Involving a vast audience of stakeholders IN-BEE combines a strong scientific base with a concrete and focused approach (based on real-life case studies), aiming to involve primarily regional and local stakeholders and to support them in assessing results of previous plans and initiatives on energy efficiency and, above all, in designing new effective strategies.

HERON aims at facilitating policy makers of multi-level governance in EU, to develop and monitor energy efficiency policies in building and transport sectors, through forward-looking socio-economic research in seven EU and one candidate countries. The objectives are: i. the impact of socio-economic and institutional factors on implementing energy efficiency policies and measures, ii. the development of energy-efficient pathways to the horizon 2030 and beyond taking into account the socio-economic drivers and the updated energy efficiency measures, iii. the contribution to improving energy modeling by incorporating social, educational and cultural factors so as to reflect the end-user behavior, iv. the establishment of communication channels between researchers, decision makers of different governance levels and social and market stakeholders. These objectives will be achieved through: (1) Mapping of energy efficiency policy instruments, available technologies and social, economic, cultural and educational barriers in transport and buildings, (2) Assessment of the evidenced barriers and the main driving factors, in order to define their weight/importance for the implementation of energy efficiency policies, (3) Determination of linkages between the factors and the energy efficiency, (4) Forward-looking scenario analysis, focusing on macro- and micro-economic impacts of energy efficiency policy options, (5) Policy recommendations through multi-criteria evaluation and feedback mechanisms with policy makers and market stakeholders from EU (member states, Covenant of Mayors) and neighboring countries (Business Council of BSEC). HERON will develop an innovative decision support tool to incorporate non-economic and non-market elements, such as social, educational and cultural, into scenario analysis.

Residential energy consumption represents the 28% of all EU consumption and if commercial buildings are also considered this percentage increases to 40% (36% of EU CO2 emissions). In this context, is clear that the reduction of consumption in the residential sector should play an important role in energy efficiency programmes and policies as is stated in the recent Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU. Most energy efficiency measures implemented in Europe involved technological interventions. In contrast, everyday energy-consuming behaviours are largely habitual and therefore the potential of energy savings at home with actions focused in consumer behaviour is really promising. In this context the provision of feedback to consumers has resulted in really promising results, achieving savings in the range of 5-20%. But some limitations exists. The aim of this project is to fill the gaps and advanced in this context, being an essential preparatory activity for the future large scale demonstration of feedback methodologies. The key aim of this project is to develop an advanced and integral user-centred framework for the implementation of efficient energy feedback programmes in the domestic area. Our approach relies in the complete characterisation of the EU energy consumer, and the design of specific personalised actions tailored to each consumer pattern detected based on the use of natural language and emotional contents. NATCONSUMERS will set the scenario to allow strengthening the dialogue between the EU energy system stakeholders in order to define robustness methodologies exploiting to the maximum the potential of energy feedback approaches, filling the existing gaps not still covered by previous pilots and experiments. NATCONSUMERS consortium brings together representatives of all stakeholders and areas involved in the project. A concise dissemination and awareness programme is proposed to reach the target communities and increase the impact of the project.