Energy efficiency in buildings at climate meeting in Paris

More than 190 countries have joined the COP21 in Paris with the aim of achieving a legally binding and universal agreement on climate change so that global warming may stay below the critical level that experts consider to be located at 2 degrees Celsius.

The role that efficient management of energy in buildings plays in the achievement of this objective is fundamental. We must keep in mind that between 60 and 70 per cent of a country’s total consumption of electricity, is carried out in a building’s environment.

For the first time during the talks on the environment being carried out this year in Paris, a day has been reserved to discuss this issue in depth, where special interest is placed on its apparent lack of diffusion in the real estate market. The question that is trying to be answered is: if all the social and economic agents agree that energy efficiency for the management of buildings only brings benefits to all the parties involved, why aren’t more building owners carrying out these measures?

Until now, the achievement of these goals is benefited almost exclusively by the creation of codes, laws, rules and regulations that builders, contractors and certain agencies should follow from a legal point of view.

The great challenge now is to perform a disseminating work of the advantages not only generated by environmental energy efficiency, for the benefit of customers and builders, while maintaining the necessary legal requirements.

STAM attendance to INCONET, GCC2 International Conference

STAM, one of the Energy IN TIME consortium partners, will participate in INCONET, GCC2 International Conference, which will be held from 6^th to 8^th of December, 2015. It is an international conference that will bring together specialists and professionals from the European Union and from the Gulf Cooperating Council with the common objective of exploring and discovering synergies between these such relevant geographic areas. The main focus of the conference will be the use of renewable energies, Smart cities design and health, topics which are considered specially relevant in order to achieve mutual benefits between the present countries from the Gulf and the European Union.

The conference will be held in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Muscat, Oman.

The first day of the conference will be centered in visiting technological parks, business incubators and research institutions, while the other two days will be centered in the presentation of action plans, opportunities of collaboration between the two regions, as well as a research of the main obstacles in this sector.

STAM will have a stand where they will present their current projects, which Energy IN TIME will have a significant presence, by providing informative talks, distributing flyers and preparing general networking activities. As the partner in charge of the exploitation strategy, this can be an excellent opportunity to disseminate the Energy IN TIME progresses to potential stakeholders and general public.

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Summary of the meeting in Barcelona

The meeting began with a presentation by Juan Luis Vidal, who will be in charge of the work package of FUNIBER, it was followed by a brief presentation on the agenda of the meeting by the project coordinator, Belén Gómez-Uribarri. During the meeting, the leaders of the different work packages explained the main items to discuss in the consortium.

Christian Beder, Cork Institute for Technology, pointed out some issues related to the connectivity with the platform of communication, by reviewing the progress in the different platforms/technologies used in the project. This closed the work package 1.

Catherine Conaghan, Stephen Earle, Daniel Coakley (IES) reviewed the progress and objectives of work package 2. The main effort in this work package has to be focused,in the future, on the definition of the active models of buildings, adapting them to overcome any need from the point of view of system control. Another point of interest was the development of the metering systems in the pilot sites, in particular Faro and Sanomatalo.

The presentation by Juan Gómez from the University of Granada (work package 3) focused on the number of simulations to be carried out in order to achieve valid models of the pilot sites.

After the presentation of the package 4 and a pause for lunch, the meeting continued with a technical session in which it was discussed different aspects focused on the implementation of tools in the pilot sites; it covered almost all the details of the work package 7.

After the presentation of the work package 5 by Benoit Vinot, CSTB, Vicente Madero, Acciona, explained the main topics carried out in the work package 6, now especially focused on the integration of the different systems that form the project.

Regarding work package 8, Giulia Barbagelata, STAM, presented the main items to consider in order to take the next steps to develop an exploitation plan for Energy In Time, as well as the tasks assigned in the clustering workshop regarding the results of exploitation.

Juan Luis Vidal, Funiber, was appointed the new head for dissemination. The next steps to take in this matter were presented, giving special attention to the importance of dissemination activities during this second part of the project that has just begun.

All the consortium partners will receive a detailed plan of work to carry out these tasks.

Belén Gómez closed the meeting presenting aspects of the package 9, which refers to the management and coordination of the project; it was also announced that the next meeting will be held towards May in the Levi Panorama Hotel in Finland.