Smart Buildings
Towards energy-smarter homes and buildings
In the context of the built environment, the European Recovery Plan defines the Energy-Efficient Buildings Initiative as 'to promote green technologies and the development of energy-efficient systems and materials in new and renovated buildings with a view to reducing radically their energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The initiative should have an important regulatory and standardisation component and would involve a procurement network of regional and local authorities. The estimated envelope for this partnership is €1bn.'
Buildings are to be understood in a broad sense including houses, residential buildings, office buildings and large infrastructures (harbours, airports, etc.). Moreover, buildings refer to all types of buildings, whether they are new, or being used or to be renovated, either they are residential, tertiary, or industrial. Additionally buildings refer not only to the interior of the buildings but also to the envelope and the surrounding space.
REViSITE will contribute to the European Research Area (ERA) in terms of integrating on-going and future research activities of ICT in the area of energy efficiency in various domains throughout Europe, with shared visions and consensus building on the impact of ICT in future smart homes, smart grids, smart lighting and smart manufacturing. As far as the Construction and Smart Buildings sector is concerned, REViSITE is aligned with the following initiatives:
- The ECTP (European Construction Technology Platform), which has identified sustainability issues as a key topic, through the identification of a "Becoming Sustainable" Research area which includes management of energy and resources, as well as reducing the environmental impact, with an emphasis on energy efficient buildings and products, energy performance, renewable energy and energy services, and with a priority on the development of ICT to sustain these objectives.
- The E2B (Energy Efficient Buildings) initiative which objective is to deliver and implement building and district concepts that have the technical, economic and societal potential to cut the energy consumption in existing and new buildings by 50% within 2030, thereby contributing to improve the energy independence of EU. This is to be achieved by integrating technologies include materials, ICT and lighting, among others.
- FIATECH (in the US & Canada), with key players like e.g. Bechtel, Texas A&M, Noumenon, Dow Chemical, Bentley Systems, NIST, etc., has developed a FIATECH Roadmap with one axis being dedicated to ICT for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, and exchange with the REEB project (and in the future the REViSITE one) are ongoing to find common issues and R&D paths while at the same time ensuring promotion of best practice and awareness-raising activities Europe-wide and world wide.