Buildings are an integral and elementary part of Europe’s energy system and will play a pivotal role in the transition to a smart decarbonized economy. However, the European building stock is currently far from being smart-ready. In particular, South European countries and the Balkans are included in the slow-starters in terms of smart readiness and must take major steps in order to effectively facilitate this transformation.
Due to similar climatic conditions and the need for close cooperation to achieve a significant reduction in the energy footprint of the public buildings, this project is to strengthen the targets set for energy efficiency in both countries through strong cross-border cooperation and joint well-prepared interventions towards reducing the energy consumption of public buildings.
The primary aim is to exploit the potential for energy savings and energy efficiency improvements in the building sector. In this sense, the project will showcase a novel approach of an advanced BMS for energy saving as well as interaction with the smart grid in three (3) public buildings. Furthermore, a number of energy efficiency improvements inside and outside the buildings will be applied according to recent prefeasibility studies. A secondary objective is to stimulate cross-border knowledge exchange and awareness regarding energy efficiency in public buildings. For this reason the partnership will jointly create a web or cloud-based tool in order to describe savings in energyconsumption for buildings of all sizes, demonstrate interaction with the smart grid, etc. Last, but not least, the partnership will seek to promote the joint involvement of various stakeholders in the sustainable energy planning and implementation towards a smart decarbonized building stock. This will be accomplished with the establishment of a joint initiative.
Initially, the partners will identify the size of the key interventions they have to make in the pilot public buildings selected to demonstrate the cutting-edge BMS, to adapt appropriately for their connection to the smart grid and to attain their energy retrofit. Then, the shared know-how and experience will be accumulated by creating a neoteric educational tool aimed at making it familiar to the general public, and especially researchers and professionals in the field, the functionality and efficiency of smart energy management to reduce energy consumption in a public building. This tool, as well as other parallel dissemination actions of the project partners, will facilitate the transfer and implementation of the project results in the two regions to the key beneficiaries (target groups).
In conclusion, the project partners are strongly convinced that its results will be successful and will greatly help turn public buildings into smart ones, reducing their energy consumption, increasing the comfort of their occupants and making more effective their necessary interaction with the smart grid.
