Renewable-intensive, energy positive homes

The aim is to move beyond NZEB (nearly zero-energy buildings) for new constructions and to the extent possible, for renovations, and to streamline energy positive buildings, ensuring buildings can marry high energy performance with maximum flexibility and adaptability to a changing society in a cost-effective manner. This is a key challenge for the residential sector in the transformation to a highly energy-efficient and climate neutral EU building stock, where energy positive homes should become the norm.

Proposals should:

• Investigate and demonstrate approaches for the construction of new energy positive residential buildings (and /or the renovation of existing residential buildings), with a focus on multi-family, multi-storey buildings, encompassing all relevant areas:
  • Design phase (aesthetic and technical solutions and their potential, passive and active strategies, sustainable design);
  • Integrated design and construction concepts;
  • Reconfigurable designs and technical elements capable of adapting to different user profiles and lifestyles;
  • Selection and installation of affordable and high performance construction products and materials, building on previous projects;
  • Innovative processes from manufacturing to construction site;
  • Integration of renewable energy production for heating and cooling, electricity production (e.g. BIPV and BAPV), and where relevant, thermal and electrical storage, including shared at neighbourhood and district levels; for existing buildings, cost-effective, innovative solutions that allow to (at least) fully cover the energy consumption of the building (electricity, heat and cooling) with renewable energy;
  • Advanced use of smart management technologies (for control and operational issues, Building Management Systems (BMS) or Building Automation Systems (BAS)) to improve air quality, human health and well-being parameters, to facilitate engagement and inclusiveness of occupants and support measurement of (as-built) building performance;
  • Reuse and recycling of elements, components and materials, in particular in relation to buildings end of life, also minimizing embodied carbon emissions over the whole life cycle, in particular for smart technologies;
  • Where applicable, the use of grey- and black-waters.
• Ensure that the cost of such buildings/apartments does not increase substantially compared to current local / regional practises.

Clustering and cooperation with other relevant projects is strongly encouraged; in particular, liaison and synergies with the Horizon Europe Partnership on ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’.

Each project is expected to include at least three demonstration sites located in different climatic regions.

The demonstrations are expected to span a continuous interval of at least twelve months and to ensure measurement of (as-built) building performances. The relevant building professionals (e.g. architects, installers, workers, craftsmen, building managers) should be involved.

Projects are expected to assess the sustainability of the proposed solutions in environmental, social and economic terms, considering among others the embodied carbon emissions from materials. The reuse and recycling of elements, components and materials of the proposed solutions at the end of life should be ensured.