Smart building retrofitting complemented by solar assisted heat pumps integrated within a self-correcting intelligent building energy management system.

Project Information

Heat4Cool

Grant agreement ID: 723925

DOI

10.3030/723925

Project closed

EC signature date 30 June 2016

Start date 3 October 2016

End date 2 April 2021

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Advanced manufacturing and processing

Total cost

€ 7 934 577,51

EU contribution

€ 5 703 012,88

Coordinated by

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - Heat4Cool (Smart building retrofitting complemented by solar assisted heat pumps integrated within a self-correcting intelligent building energy management system.)

Reporting period: 2019-10-03 to 2021-04-02

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The construction sector has a crucial impact on the EU environment and energy policies as buildings use 40% of total EU energy consumption and generate 36% of GHGs in Europe. Based on typical energy consumption levels of the existing ageing stock, data shows that the largest energy saving potential is associated with older buildings and that due to long renovation cycles (around 20 years for heating and air-conditioning systems), almost 330 million of residential houses will require a full rehabilitation within the next few years.

Heat4Cool will have a socio-economic and environmental impact. It will achieve at least 20% reduction of the energy consumption from the grid. Assuming an intervention with the Heat4Cool approach over the building stock combining the solution for the DHW and heating ventilation, with a penetration rate of 5% within 5 years after the end of the project, will result in an increase of turnover and additional investments for the construction sector of almost 4 Billion € which, as a result, will create new jobs in the construction sector and installation industry.
Health. A more indirect benefit occurs through health benefits. Most energy efficiency measures will improve the indoor temperature, and by choosing renovation measures improving the indoor climate, health benefits can be obtained through fewer diseases, reduced mortality, improved worker productivity, and improved overall quality of life.

The Heat4Cool project will contribute to a cost efficient, systematic and integrated solution for retrofitting residential buildings and district resources able to reduce more than 20% in energy consumption with a payback period of less than 10 years.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Objective 1. The H4C Retrofitting Design Planner Tool. The tool was successfully developed and launched on-line, https://www.heat4cool.eu/heat4cool-retrosim-tool/
As this was identified as one of the project KER, a project result has been published on H2020 project results platform and included in the Innovation Radar.

Objective 2-3. Integration of the heating and cooling solutions. 3 Main heating and cooling integrated solutions for building retrofitting have been demonstrated. Results achieved: all the retrofitting plans at demo sites have been completed and three out of four pilot sites have provided monitoring results which highlighted the high energy efficiency and exploitability potentials of both the plug&play solutions at residential level as well as at district level.

Objective 4. Self Correcting Intelligent Building Energy Management System.
The results achieved are:
- Deployment of SCI-BEMS infrastructure at the Valencia, Chorzow pilot sites. Continuous data monitoring and evaluation of comfort profiling and automated setpoint control for apartment fan coil units (Valencia) and radiator valves (Chorzow)
- Deployment of SCI-BEMS infrastructure at the Sofia pilot site

Objective 5. Demonstrate and validate the market-oriented heating and cooling solution.
The consortium has ensured maximum replication potential of the H4C solution by continuously monitoring technical and economic barriers during the project phases.
A detailed business plan has been developed to strengthen the exploitation plan of the retrofitting package and set the basis for replicating the demonstrated concepts across Europe. The results achieved are:
- Analysis of the industrial viability of technologies and replication potential has been presented.
- New business models to support the commercialisation of each individual project result have been performed
- Heat4Cool solution implemented in 4 pilot buildings
- End-User Acceptance Level (95%) was reached
- 30% Energy Consumption Reduction and 30% emissions reduction in some of the pilot sites
- At least 4 workshops per pilot for awareness and collaboration throughout the project have been organized

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Expected impact 1: Demonstrate a high potential of replication across Europe contributing to large scale market deployment before 2025 particularly with the support of dedicated tool kits, which would be easy to install requiring a limited workforce.
- Heat4Cool will validate the technologies and integrated system developed by the project in three real buildings and a one district with different characteristics and climate zone, in order to demonstrate the adaptability of the technologies and integrated solutions.
- Affordability, including cost analysis and financial sources will be part of the work developed in WP7 along with the activities carried out in Task 4.3 (Post-retrofit assessment).
- Replicability of retrofitting technologies and the integrated approach will be evaluated at building and district scale, considering the variations of bounder conditions (legal, financial, energy market, regulations)
- Standards and regulations will be analyzed in the beginning of the project (WP2) and standardization activities will be carried out for the technologies and products developed to enable wide spread of the framework and interface/material used.
- The integration of RES (such as PV and Solar thermal) to the building will increase the self-consumption of the building. The development and integration of advanced heat pumps with heat recovery system (great improvement of the system performance) is an important step toward the net zero energy.
- The integration of RES with heat recovery system and demand respond, smart grid services to the control system will increase highly the energy efficiency and lower down the energy consumption.
Expected impact 2: Cost-effective highly energy-efficient equipment with target reduction of energy consumption of 20 -30 % (including renewable)
The implementation of RES (PV cells and Solar thermal) coupled with the improvement of Heating and Cooling solutions (AdHP and DCHP) in different demos can reduce the associated primary energy consumption significantly. Through the development of integrated solutions specifically optimized for each demo site, the target reduction of 20-30% including renewables seems to be a feasible target according to the first estimations, as most of the demo scenarios fulfil the reductions under conservative energy efficiency assumptions in this first approach.
Expected impact 3: Payback period of below 10 years.
The target payback period of the project is less than 10 years, based on:
- A high participation of SMEs with large experience in costs which give us the opportunity to develop along the project time a systematic optimization of cost. A deep knowledge of commercial global market and components suppliers.
- Four pilot projects give us the opportunity of costs refinement during the demonstration period.
- An optimization and maximum flexibility of integrated operation and control system based on a develop dynamic visual and thermal comfort models to allow later on the appropriate adjustments of heating/ cooling loads, to achieve highly comfortable indoor environments and optimizing the consumption
Expected impact 4: Best practice examples for the construction sector based on innovation and competitiveness, with benefits for the citizens and the environment.
Heat4Cool consortium composed among others, by 9 SMEs from 7 European countries ensure a commitment of the SMEs European sector. The SME participants´ profiles cover all value chain of retrofitting business: Designers, Builders, products suppliers, engineers, facility managers, ESCOs, HVAC installers and developers.

H4C retrofitting tool