Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PROBONO (The Integrator-centric approach for realising innovative energy efficient buildings in connected sustainable green neighbourhoods)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-04-30
The PROBONO project’s main aim is to encompass legal, financial, social, and technical aspects, to gather to a GBN implementation fully complying with all aspects.
To implement the GBN Target Model, plans for integration and/or transition into a newly developed or renovated neighbourhood need to be linked to several different factors: Governance, People, Processes, Technology, Information, and Infrastructure.
PROBONO will support this objective through a range of participatory co-design methods that encourage stakeholder participation. Furthermore, a digital twin (DT) platform will be created to capture and represent the digital representations of GBN, and their components encountered in the LLs.
As society becomes increasingly urban and ever dependent on technological innovations, it is vital to ensure that people and planet are put at the very heart of this development in a way that is sensitive to and encourages the protection, expansion, or re-introduction of sustainable space amongst the urban sprawls.
PROBONO will show how a people-centred, green, and sustainable approach to renovation can stimulate sustainable neighbourhoods and the well-being of communities. Sustaining both nature and humanity in natural balance to our mutual benefit and shared future.
PROBONO recognises the importance of involving stakeholders and considering their needs and interests throughout the life of the project and applies human behaviour research to ensure that project innovations meet real and contextual societal needs.
Energy systems' planning for GBNs requires new, innovative approaches. Traditionally, neighbourhoods were first planned in terms of urban development and then an energy supply system was superimposed. GBNs require a holistic development where integrated energy system infrastructures, innovative technologies, and standard practices LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) are designed together from the initial idea in the urban planning phase, and social awareness would be the driver of such a profound achievement. The aim is to achieve a high share of locally generated renewable energy and good energy efficiency in a sector-coupled energy system. This requires new planning tools. The LL offers a concrete implementation of a GBN in which a range of solutions and social activities create and cement the foundations for a new reality.
A set of proven solutions with proven results could be a “Pret a Porter” formula that can be replicated in other cities.
A technologies catalogues of innovations present in the market, energy planning guidelines, baseline scenarios calculation and approaching the DT, which will collect information from all disciplines has been elaborated.
Several innovations currently on the market were studied. The initial findings were presented to LLs to assist building designers and planners and provide inspiration tools for incorporating the most appropriate technologies into the design of LLs measures.
A baseline calculation for each LLs has been established for the assessment framework. The next step for the coming months is a monitoring plan to analyse the data and draw conclusions. The final assessment will include a summary of all final impacts from all Work Packages (Fig4).
All WPs have learned about DT functionalities and feeding needed by all disciplines in terms of technical inputs, such as LCA, case studies, baselines calculations, and energy models, and on the other hand in terms of social input such as classification of key behaviours. The outcome will be provided to finally create a digital model which ultimately will visualize KPIs (Fig 2 - 3) to support decision-making process.
LLs implementation is based on all previous work packages and has been implementing the knowledge produced, in the design of demos, counting on input by administration, promoters, and technical providers.
The replicability of GBN innovation is an important outcome of the PROBONO project, the identification of Key Exploitable Results that will form the cornerstone for the upcoming assessment of innovation and exploitation and the exploration of commercial exploitation pathways.
Tools have been created in different disciplines, and will be developed further in the second reporting period, such as a methodology for local actors to realize their PESTLE Analysis, which will lead to a roadmap of transition to a GBN, stakeholders mapping, and classification of key behaviours, a catalogue of technologies cases study, an energy planning guideline to support planners, the definition of the LLs evaluation framework and the baseline calculation, finally a standards mapping to support WPs work.
The next steps are directed at making progress in adapting technologies in each LL and identifying predictable usable outcomes for GBNs. A major push is being given to the DT component, and the integration of all data into the platform.
The results and findings achieved in the first 16 months will be integrated into the design of the LLs thanks to the collaboration of all working groups. Until the end of the project,the results expected concern the implementation of those innovations selected as most adequate for each LL, to o reach out impacts in terms of energy savings and develop a batch of innovative solutions replicable to reach GBN in other cities.