The ProRetro project aims to - Overcome barriers to residential building refurbishment by offering new one-stop-shop services to customers in five German cities/regions - base the one-stop-shop design on the needs of customers so that - they are attractive to customers, - conceptualise, plan, implement and monitor and evaluate the new one-stop-shops - prepare their continuation beyond the project lifetime - cover the whole customer journey of a building renovation from audit/advice, planning, contracting, implementation and monitoring and approval – and involve respective stakeholders/experts in the service offer - build on information and experiences in designing and implementing one-stop shops from best practice examples in other European countries and establish peer-learning structures with those organisations

Vienna has set itself ambitious targets in its Smart City Framework Strategy. To achieve those targets, efforts must be increased considerably. With a large share of multi-storey buildings and the highest share of large buildings from before 1919, Vienna’s building stock differs significantly from those of the other Austrian provinces and calls for specifically targeted strategies and actions. RenoBooster – the Smart Renovation Hub Vienna proposes a tailored and timely answer to this challenge. It is the joint effort of renowned institutional, technical and social expertise led by the City of Vienna, to create an attractive offer - One-Stop-Shop - for the Viennese private home owners and their building managers built on existing services. The project is designed as comprehensive participatory process, involving the key stakeholders in Vienna and thus laying the ground for stable local partnerships for renovation. Substantial support has already been achieved in preparation of the proposal. The project combines new consulting services, banking and finance instruments, targeted subsidies, communication formats as well as technical and legal framework conditions into integrated services. Careful market segmentation and target-group specific communication will support the development and thorough testing of a number of new packages – including topics like efficient technologies, renewable energy and energy poverty. Quality assurance to support home owners in achieving the expected energy savings will be the essential element. In the first 5 years of the Smart Renovation Hub Vienna the new integrated services are expected to lead to an increase of the renovation rate and quality, triggering at least 110 mio € investments, 5.5 GWh/a of primary energy savings and a reduction of 1000t of CO2 emissions/a. Moreover, RenoBooster is expected to create a positive dynamic going beyond this project and stimulate further energy-efficient renovation initiatives.

Buildings constitute a vast, yet currently untapped, source of energy demand flexibility that can provide invaluable services to the energy system. This flexibility currently remains unattainable due to the lack of a technological framework that can connect the multitude of buildings and building systems with the energy system in a cost-effective manner as well as the reluctance of energy consumers to enroll in demand response programs. DRIMPAC offers a comprehensive solution to empower consumer to become active participants in the energy markets. It comprises three main pillars: a) A legacy and Standards-compliant interoperability framework to interconnect building energy loads/appliances and expose their demand flexibility as price-responsive demand to the grid or for market actors to aggregate and bid in ancillary service markets. b) A human-centric, intelligent building energy management system that will lift the burden of demand response from the consumers shoulders and reduce reluctance and fear of participation in DR programs. It will infer user comfort preferences and dynamically control building loads to minimize energy cost and use for the building occupant leveraging dynamic prices, while always preserving comfortable and healthy indoor conditions. c) Innovative business models and service offering for energy retailers in order to facilitate their transformation from commodity suppliers to digital energy service suppliers and kick-start the deployment of the DRIMPAC solution in the market. The DRIMPAC technological framework and business models will be validated by four retailers supplying three energy carriers – electricity, natural gas and district heating – in four different national markets across the EU - France, Cyprus, Germany and Spain. Pilot demonstrations will take place in a range of building types, including residential, office, educational and others, in order to validate the DRIMPAC benefits across most building typologies.

IncorporatEE project aims to realise EUR 60 million of total investments (EUR 32 million in energy-related measures) in major renovations, improvement of building services and installation of renewable energy sources in public buildings in the city of Salzburg and Villach. These savings will not only be calculated at the design stage, but will be guaranteed by an innovative quality management process up to commissioning. In this way, energy savings of 55% and CO2 savings of 65% can be achieved in building operation during comprehensive renovations, which means an increase of around 30 percentage points compared to previous renovations. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to turn not just one but many set screws. The new Performance-Based-Renovation-Package (PeBaRePa) is the sum total of these set screws for renovations. This package is designed to ensure the implementation of performance-based objectives all the way through to operation. This package comprises the following components: - Establishment and training of a dedicated organisational unit in the cities responsible for implementing energy performance quality assurance - Developing internal financing models within the city in order to be able to finance investments in energy-efficient renovations in the long term - Development of innovative, performance-related contracts for planners to provide financial incentives to plan and implement high energy performance - Development of a catalogue for sustainable refurbishment of public buildings specifically for the requirements and specifications of the participating cities - Development and adaptation of a quality assurance process from planning to commissioning of buildings - Development of business models for energy communities for photovoltaics during roof refurbishment The PeBaRePa will be disseminated nationally and internationally to public authorities as well as to planners and developers.

The globalisation trends in the building sector resulted in the adoption of inadequate design solutions, especially for warm weather regions, which replicated designs that are far from sustainable or energy-efficient. The obsession with glazed-unshaded buildings is the most visible aspect of this trend. These buildings perform badly even in central Europe, and yet we see an ever-growing number of glass tower buildings in Africa. The need to fight this cycle of inadequate building practices is clear, especially considering a climate change scenario. In light of this challenge, it is urgent to investigate the best sustainable design and construction examples from warm regions worldwide. Design strategy involves bioclimatic approaches and other low-energy solutions for maintaining comfort levels in warmer climates. Some of these solutions already exist in Africa and only need to be disseminated and adapted to other regions. Inspiration might originate from nature, like the Saharan Silver ants, with enhanced optical reflection and radiative heat dissipation capabilities. This concept was recently successfully adapted as a building surface finishing layer. Combining these state-of-the-art approaches with the best bioclimatic solutions will be the hallmark of the ABC 21 project.