A2PBEER Project Aims To Cut Energy Waste In Public Buildings

Windows that warm a building in the winter and cool it in the summer, devices that bring the sunlight into darkened rooms, and solar collectors that provide heat and cold for 15 years using metal tubes – these are just some of the energy-saving solutions currently being tested by a EU-funded project called A2PBEER, which has set out to reduce the energy being consumed by our public buildings.

Public buildings in Europe are often older and less efficient than
buildings constructed today and,as those built before 1980 consume around 95% of energy used by buildings, they make the perfect target for retrofitting solutions that will help reduce this consumption.A2PBEER is a four-year research effort partly funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme. It is addressing the issue of energy efficient retrofitting as a means of reaching the EU’s 20-20-20 energy targets – reducing greenhouse gas emissions, raising the share of energy produced by renewable sources and improving energy efficiency, all by 20 per cent by 2020.

The project is developing a new approach to renovating public
buildings using a mix of established building solutions and advanced, innovative solutions – hence ‘Affordable and Adaptable Public Buildings through Energy Efficient Retrofitting’The project aims to demonstrate that the requirements to make buildings nearly-zero energy can already be achieved in public buildings by using affordable and adaptable solutions already available on the market.
It is doing this by retrofitting three demonstration buildings – in
Malmo, Bilbao and Ankara – using new building envelopes with
vacuum insulation panels and integrated with various ventilated
façade solutions, smart windows solutions, smart lighting solutions
and solar thermal heat pumps.
These four technologies,developed by the project partners,are available on the market, so the project has developed retrofitting
kits combining a variety of them developed to match each building’s specific requirements.
Once fitted, the solutions will be validated by a complex monitoring
system that measures indoor and outdoor conditions as well as the
energy consumption of the buildings before and after retrofitting.
A2PBEER has also developed a methodology for the holistic
energy-efficient retrofitting of public buildings meaning the processes being used by the project can be replicated in different climates and in different types of buildings.