The Renovation Wave aims to accelerate improvements in the energy performance of 35 million buildings across Europe by 2030. Much emphasis is on advancing technology integration by developing integrated and compatible technology packages for building renovations. However, accelerating the uptake of renewable energy technologies combined with Integrated Energy Systems (IES) also requires consideration of financial and social innovation to address non-technological barriers.
The EU-funded RES4BUILD project incorporates this approach by developing integrated renewable energy-based solutions that are tailored to the needs and requirements of users and installers. The project aims to increase the uptake of renewable energy solutions for heating and cooling; decarbonizing energy consumption in buildings and contributing to EU energy and climate goals. The project team is working to improve the performance and reduce the cost of the most innovative components of the RES4BUILD solutions: integrating photovoltaic thermal (PVT) collectors with magnetocaloric and multi-source heat pumps, optimizing their performance through advanced control and building energy management systems (BEMS). The fully integrated system will begin testing in early 2022.
This work aims to devise a best practice approach for more integrated and systematic renovations of energy systems, ultimately contributing to more efficient operation and optimized interaction with the grid, and thus a lower energy bill for European consumers.