Dynamic EU building stock knowledge hub

Project Information

BUILTHUB

Grant agreement ID: 957026

DOI

10.3030/957026

Project closed

EC signature date 27 July 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 30 September 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 2 197 088,75

EU contribution

€ 2 197 088,75

Coordinated by

ACCADEMIA EUROPEA DI BOLZANO
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - BUILTHUB (Dynamic EU building stock knowledge hub)

Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2024-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Advancing the pace of building stock decarbonisation – in line with the European Commission’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 – goes together with a solid understanding of the current building stock. Knowing its features, and how it evolves, is the basis for improvement. The challenge, however, is that building data is often fragmented, underrepresented, or not granular enough to allow for meaningful analysis.
The collection of data and use of smart technologies for buildings is swiftly improving and growing. This constitutes an unprecedented opportunity to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, as well as to better manage their energy consumption and life cycle. According to the EU-funded BuiltHub project’s roadmap , there is a clear path forward. The BuiltHub project aims to change the way data relating to building energy performance and physical characteristics is developed and shared.
By defining a data value chain – from data collection to exploitation – and a community-focused vision for a durable dataflow, BuiltHub addresses critical gaps in the characterization of the EU building stock. A web-based hub serves as a repository for the data and provides associated data services. In doing so, it enables the design of more effective sustainable building and renovation policies, programmes, projects, and financing schemes. Ultimately, BuiltHub empowers Europe to achieve the climate ambitions that hinge on detailed knowledge of building stock properties and behaviour.

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

BuiltHub’s key achievements include:
• Effective and informative communications products that support project visibility and overall information-sharing.
• Content-rich and collaborative project-owned events that engage a wide audience of stakeholders and encourage the recruitment of users.
• Consistent engagement with sister projects and initiatives both online and via shared sessions or stands at events.
• In-depth analysis of the status quo of the EU BSO (Building Stock Observatory), through the compilation of a comprehensive list of building stock-related datasets across Europe at the local, national, and international levels, including issues regarding metadata, the reliability of data, and inconsistencies in data representation.
• A freely accessible web-based data platform for testing and demonstration purposes and to collect feedback from users. The platform was accompanied with training programmes, and guidelines are available to assist stakeholders in accessing and utilizing the platform for their business segment.
• A roadmap for dynamic and automated building data collection (D6.6) presenting use cases, best practices, and recommendations for Member States to accelerate building stock characterization and transition processes.
• Various publications, including a country by country descriptive and comparative analysis of the energy performance of buildings based on over 150,000 data points.
• An assessment of stakeholders (D2.1) including their needs and technical requirements (D2.2) which includes a synthesis from EU policy reviews, surveys, and interviews. In addition, a focus group report (D3.3) collected and organised the feedback from project focus groups. A stakeholder engagement report (D2.3) focuses on describing the efforts and outcomes of stakeholder events, surveys, and other engagement actions to provide a comprehensive account of stakeholder involvement and insights.
• Several reports linked to data provision, governance, standardisation, and analytics, including: Inventory structure and main feature and datasets (D3.1); Methodology on data quality assurance (D3.2) Building sector indicators along with their definition and calculation (D4.1); Data transformation workflows including ML (Machine Learning) techniques (D4.4) and visualisation concepts (D4.5); Features and functionalities provided by the BuiltHub platform (D3.4).
• Support to the EU BSO (Building Stock Observatory) and to Member States in building national BSOs and providing data to the EU BSO in accordance with the EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive).

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)

The project has developed a comprehensive roadmap to enhance the data required for informed decision-making in building-related policy and business. By fostering a dynamic community and a centralized data hub, it seeks to revolutionize policy and market decision-making through a continually evolving evidence base. This effort has focused on creating standardized methods for data collection, quality assurance, indicator definition and calculation, and visualization. Advanced techniques, such as machine learning and dataset integration, have been developed and tested to maximize the utility of available data.
The roadmap emphasizes improving the accuracy, granularity, and usability of building stock data. These improvements will allow for better representation of critical aspects, including worst-performing buildings and renovation potential. By providing shared, interoperable datasets, the project enables enhanced benchmarking and comparability. This advancement supports stakeholders in monitoring the evolution of the building stock, setting and achieving policy targets, and designing effective transition pathways for buildings.
The socio-economic implications of these enhanced pathways are substantial. Improved datasets and modeling capabilities will enable targeted building stock transitions, generating benefits that include reduced renovation costs, improved energy efficiency, and increased decarbonization. Additionally, the project has emphasized community building and outreach, raising awareness of the importance of a robust building data value chain. In collaboration with the BuiltHub community of users, the project is transforming knowledge-sharing on the EU building stock by connecting stakeholders from across Europe. Moreover, its close cooperation with the BSO tender consortium ensures alignment with EU directives, such as the EPBD, and supports Member States in developing national BSOs and providing data to the EU BSO. By combining technological innovation, community engagement, and actionable insights, the project paves the way for better building stock monitoring, smarter policy design, and accelerated decarbonization pathways for Europe.

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