On 26 June 2013 the conference “Innovation in energy efficient buildings and districts for a smart built environment”, hosted by the the Energy Efficient Buildings Association (E2BA) in Brussels as part of the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2013, conveyed the attention upon research and innovation activities at European level for an energy efficient and sustainable built environment to further boost the creation of jobs and accelerate growth. The occasion brought together policy makers at
European, national, regional and local level and a variety of stakeholders, including SMEs, who work for energy efficiency in the built environment in Europe.

Emmanuel Forest, Bouygues SA, E2BA President, welcomed participants and opened the high-level policy conference together with Patrice Millet, DG Research and Innovation, who chaired the conference. Stefano Carosio, responsible for Innovation for D’Appolonia (Rina Group) and Cochairman of the Ad-hoc Industrial Advisory Group of the EeB PPP, presented the new Research and Innovation Roadmap 2014-20 developed by the E2B Association underlying three main research lines, i.e. “Technologies for acceleration of building stock renovation”, “Interactive and sustainable buildings embedded at district and city scale”, “Ensuring energy performance during service life”.

The success of the Energy Efficient Buildings Public Private Partnership (EeB PPP) was one more time emphasized by the presentation of several successful projects financed under this programme, started in 2009. Javier Bonilla, Acciona, presented three demonstration projects on Energy-Efficiency in building retrofitting, Johan Desmedt, VITO, focused on projects integrating energy systems and ICT at building and district level, Dr Ruth Kerrigan, IES, gave a snapshot of projects on innovative design and ICT solutions for energy efficient buildings and neighbourhoods underlying the central role of user behavior, and Antonio De Ferrari, D’Appolonia, presented the cross project experimental demo park in Madrid promoting exchange of know how in the field of nanotechnology applied to energy efficient buildings solutions. “It is a good example of how the EeB PPP creates synergies between projects”, commented Patrice Millet, DG Research and Innovation.

The second part of the conference was dedicated to the take-up of innovation to the market.
Ségolène Martin and Gonçalo Ascensao from CEN explained how EeB PPP projects can benefit from standardisation. But, how to support innovation to enter the market? “It’s all about driving innovation” said Peter Shellinck, EOTA Secretary General. Green buildings are in demand and a foundation of industry is needed. How to remove barriers to ensure the roll-out of energy innovations? “Three areas of interventions are the key: supporting policies, building skills and
facilitating investments” stated Vincent Berrutto, Head of the Energy Efficient Unit at EACI.

Another challenge today is to transfer solutions to cities. For this reason projects should also include innovative lighthouse, high replication potential, exhaustive monitoring of operation, performance and efficiency, cost effective measures, communication and exchange of information between users/inhabitants and decision makers/city authorities. “We need Energy Efficiency in order to develop synergies in buildings and districts and to go globally, considering the whole energy system”, said Andreea Strachinescu, Head of Unit, DG Energy, in her closing remarks.

Please also visit: www.ectp.org/enewsportal

About E2BA
The Energy Efficient Buildings Association (E2BA), an initiative by the European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP), promotes an industry driven research, demonstration and innovation (RDI) programme for Energy-efficient buildings and districts, with the vision to drive the creation of a high-tech building industry which turns energy efficiency into a sustainable business, extending the scope of the running and successful PPP EeB beyond 2013.

For more information, please contact:
Luc Bourdeau, E2BA Secretary General, or Silvia Zinetti, E2BA Communication Officer
E-mail: secretariat@e2b-ei.eu or silvia.zinetti@e2b-ei.eu
Tel: 02 4001068 468