1st Seminar on the Promotion of Innovative Projects in Green Economy

Organized jointly by R20 MED, the R20 NGO's office for the Mediterranean region, École Nationale Polytechnique d'Oran Maurice-Audin ( ENPO-MA ) and École des Mines de Saint-Etienne ( EMSE ) 1st Seminar on the Promotion of Innovative Projects in Green Economy was held on 11 and 12 July 2017 at the Algerian School of Business (ESAA) in Algiers. It was sponsored by Ms Fatma-Zohra Zerouati, Minister of the Environment and Renewable Energies. The seminar was attended by numerous national institutional

4 events across Europe propose a Mutual Learning platform for Building professionals

European project LEARN-EER, Mutual Learning for Energy Efficient Retrofitting, will undertake this challenge through an innovative learning platform that will answer to professional’s skill needs from the participating countries as to future professionals from building and energy sector. To introduce the LearnEER project to potential users, four events had been recently celebrated, where the project objectives, the main activities accomplished and the results reached in the first semester have been

EmBuild addressing barriers to deep renovation. A call for sound renovation strategies.

The second renovation strategies due in 2017 are an opportunity to overcome barriers and to boost deep renovation of the existing building stock. Involving local and regional authorities is vital to ensure that the barriers to renovation are well addressed. Without this, barriers will remain and investments in building renovation will not be sufficient to stimulate deep renovation and reap its multiple benefits: reducing greenhouse gases, cutting energy bills, creating jobs, addressing energy poverty

Solar energy: “googling” your roof

Internet users can assess the solar potential of their roofs through a platform developed by Google. The online “calculator”, which was only accessible in the US, has now reached Europe, starting in Germany Despite increasing talk about renewable energy, many people remain far removed from what’s going on. To tackle this, various projects have been developed over the years helping users to better understand and use green energy sources. Among these experiences is Google’s Sunroof platform that

TBB.2017: Featuring over 50 innovative energy solutions for the construction industry

TBB is the leading innovation event in sustainable energy taking place in Amsterdam on 25-26 October 2017. With over 160 energy innovations from which 50 are related to buildings, it is the innovation meeting point for the construction industry. Indeed, buildings account for 40% of the energy consumption of Europe and in the coming years the trend for greener buildings will accelerate pushed by regulations and demanding energy labels.  On the consumer side, the demand for integrated renewable energy

Healthy and energy efficient buildings: the potential of ECO-SEE materials

With energy efficiency in buildings high up on the European political agenda, Brussels is certainly the place where awareness about the importance of energy performant buildings is prominent. But less people might be aware of how much indoor air quality needs to be improved. Indoor air is 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoors, because of mould and bacteria resulting from excessive levels of humidity, and pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released by furniture, cleaning products

Comfort+: OfficeVitae's app for better working environments

 Officevitae deployed this month Officevitae Comfort+ at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Technical University of Delft.   Key features include: Sensor data views of one’s own office for C02 levels, humidity, temperature, light, noise and movement. Via a desktop, IOS and Android app occupants can order heating for their space locally or remotely. Eco switch for extra energy savings. When Eco-mode is on heating is automatically adjusted or switched off heating depending upon space occupancy

OfficeVitae put employees at the center of health and comfort in offices

BTA’s startup is all about healthy and comfortable office spaces. This issue is gradually tackled by more actors, but OfficeVitae’s approach is unique. Tako Werts, CEO of OfficeVitae, wants to go even further and restore your vitality at work. He shares with us how. What is OfficeVitae? Tako Werts: We’re a spinoff of a project by the Delft University of Technology (DUT), in the Netherlands. We became a company in December 2016, with the help of Climate-KIC’s flagship Building Technologies Accelerator

CUBE 2020 first summer’s rankings : contest’s effectiveness is confirmed

As the “Tour de France” pack of cyclists just biked the first kilometres of the race, here is a first picture of the 236 public and private commercial buildings that took the start in the 2017 Contest for better Use and Building Efficiency CUBE 2020. In the end of April, after four months of efforts, the candidates cumulate 3.2% of annual energy savings (that is to say a prospect of 10% by the end of the year) and 3.3% of greenhouse gas reductions. A dozen candidates passed 10% threshold.  In the

The role of the Primary Energy Factor (PEF) in determining the energy performance of buildings

In its new policy brief, BPIE proposes using delivered energy as the main building performance indicator to determine and set requirements for its energy performance. BPIE argues that the current approach, using the Primary Energy Factors (PEFs) is detrimental to understanding the real energy performance of a building. The PEF describes the efficiency of converting energy from primary sources (e.g. coal, crude oil) to a secondary energy carrier (e.g. electricity, natural gas) that provides energy