The Next Generation Energy Performance Certificates: Making Buildings fit for the energy transition

Oct 14, 2021

A lively and informative moderated panel discussion between the project's representatives has taken place in the webinar organised in the framework of the Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW) on the 14th of October 2021. The Sustainable Energy Days are digital activities and events organised by local public and private organisations across Europe to promote clean energy and energy efficiency. REHVA, BPIE, FEDARENE and Sympraxis Team, hosted by the BuildUp Portal, brought together key actors from the Next Generation Energy Performance Certificates for buildings. In addition to the project representatives, representatives from DG ENER and BPIE participated in the webinar. Their speeches were focused on the EU Member States and specifically on decision-makers and influencers of the EPBD revision process.

Mrs Panagiota Chatzipanagiotidou, representing the D^2EPC project, introduced the main objectives of our project and participated in the interesting discussion. Along with her, the participants were the following:

• 3 H2020 coordination and support actions, started in 2019: QualDeEPC, U-CERT, X-tendo 
• 4 H2020 innovation actions, started in 2020: D^2EPC, E-DYCE, ePANACEA, EPC RECAST
• 4 H2020 coordination and support actions, started in 2021: crossCert, EUB SuperHub, iBRoad2EPC, TIMEPAC
  

3rd Plenary meeting

Oct 07, 2021

The consortium of the D^2EPC project held a two-day online 3rd Plenary meeting. This meeting took place on 5th and 6th October 2021, with the main objective to update each other on the progress of our project, what has been achieved so far, and set up the next steps. The meeting was led by Project Coordinator CERTH.

On the first day, we started with the presentation for WP8 Project Management and reviewed the action list and pending activities from the previous plenary meeting. We continued with WP2, where each task presented its progress on the development of the KPIs and the D^2EPC information model. Next, we were introduced to the progress of tasks from WP3 and we have concluded with the discussion about the exploitation activities, IPR management and post-project sustainability. The second day started with an overview of WP4 which has just started and continued with the progress on WP5, which is dealing with the demonstration and impact assessment. After the coffee break, we moved on to WP6 and WP7 and concluded the day with the workshop on the findings of WG2 for the definition of the operational rating of buildings.

It was a good opportunity for all of us to meet again and work together, promoting teamwork and cooperation between the partners. Together we defined action points and future steps for the successful continuation of the project. Hopefully, next time we will be able to meet in person!

D^2EPC at SUSTAINABLE PLACES 2021

Sep 30, 2021

D^2EPC has participated in the workshop "Building Energy Performance Certificates: The Enabler Smart Readiness Indicator" which took place on 29th September at 9:00 - 12:30. The workshop was part of the conference Sustainable Places 2021, which is Europe's number one destination for EU research collaboration and market opportunities.

The 9th annual edition of Sustainable Places is a hybrid event, lasting from 28th September to 1st October, with the in-person sessions hosted in Rome, Italy.  SP2021 is gathering more than 150 European projects representing €850 million in R&D and 1500 research performing organizations. 

The 90-minute hybrid workshop was set against the backdrop of the ongoing SRI implementation and further development (futureproofing) at both EU and national levels. The members of the Next Gen EPCerts H2020 cluster joined forces with the SmartBuilt4EU team to provide support to the European Commission services (& contractors) and the EU's Member States in the upcoming SRI national testing and the ongoing development of the SRI.

Representing our D^2EPC project, Mrs Christiana Panteli described our main outputs, some of the indicators used and what has been achieved so far.

You can watch the webinar here.

The Working Group 2 met this Month

Sep 28, 2021

In the development of the D^2EPC project, as a part of T5.1 activities for auditing and guidance for D^2EPC implementation, two working groups have been formulated: Working Group 1 (WG1) on the Asset Rating of Energy Performance of Buildings in Europe and Working Group 2 (WG2) on the Operational Rating of Energy Performance of Buildings in Europe.

The aim of working groups includes the development and delivery of a tool dedicated to the asset energy performance rating of buildings based on EPBD standards (WG1), as well as the development and delivery of a methodology for the operational energy performance ratings of buildings (WG2).

Both groups have been working on their roles, and WG2 met on 8th September in order to discuss the content of the deliverable and organise the next steps.

Paris Fokaides (FRC) as a host of the meeting presented the progress of work implemented so far, the outcomes of WG 2 and initiated the discussion on how the WG could proceed from this point on. They highlighted the connection that exists between the WG2 and the needs of T5.1 as well as the content of WP2. The collection of primary material on operational rating (OR) methodologies in the EU Member States was debated, and the update of partners' input on the Member States using the OR methodology was discussed as well. They drafted the first conclusions and proposed a first version of the operational scheme.
 
The next steps for this WG are:

Partners of WP2 met online

Sep 28, 2021

On 31st August a meeting of WP2-"Development of the Operational Framework for dEPC Schemes" took place.

The WP2 leader welcomed and introduced participants to the meeting agenda. Eglė Klumbytė (KTU) presented the structure of the WP2 and its general information. The partners presented the achievements under their tasks and gave an update on their progress.

The objectives of this WP are:

• To analyse and define a set of indicators to be included in the next generation EPCs;
• To deliver the system's information model;
• To deliver the requirements and steps for ensuring a common way for auditing and implementation.

The tasks that compose WP2 and their achievements so far are the following:

• T2.1 Smart Readiness Indicators Analysis for EPCs: The D^2EPC Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI) KPIs were presented. The SRI Issuance sequence diagram, and the employment of the SRIs in next-generation BIM, based EPCs schemas were described.
• T2.2 Human-comfort and wellbeing Indicators Elicitation: The presenter introduced participants to the general information of the task and Comfort Profiling Modelling Framework. Regarding the relevant standards, efforts have been made to align the data-driven approach with the methodologies provided by the Level(s) framework.
  
• T2.3 Energy Performance & LCA Indicators Analysis for EPCs: The presenter explained the purpose of using the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for the extraction of environmental indicators and described the procedure to deliver them using BIM files. Indicators will be useful at the design stage for the evaluation of the environmental impact of the building and its materials
  
• T2.4 Analysis of Cost and Economic Indicators for EPCs: The purpose of economic indicators is to monetize the deviation between designed and operated use of buildings, by monitoring the performance. It was presented that drafting of D2.4 with the input of contributing partners have been started.
  
• T2.5 D^2EPC Information Model: KTU and contributing partners prepared the deliverable D2.5. The structure and content of the deliverable were briefly introduced: State of the art analysis on existing data models and their relevance to the project, Revealing the difference of asset and operational ratings, Defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Guidelines and workflow for extracting required data from IFC files.
  

With all this progress, the partners are encouraged to continue working every day to move the D^2EPC project forward.

SpliTech conference 2021

Sep 13, 2021

University of Split (FESB) organized a 4-day scientific/professional/industry conference that took place in Split and Bol (island of Brac), Croatia, together with virtual access to the conference (hybrid conference). The SpliTech conference that lasted from  September 8th to September 11th, 2021 covered the fields of the topics IoT, Smart Cities, Energy and Health.

D^2EPC was presented at the conference on 9th September in the technical program S10: Energy Efficiency, in the session there were 23 participants from various countries, among them Croatia, Turkey, Italy & Poland. Our colleague Stavros Koltsios from CERTH talked about current EPC challenges & the D^2EPC approach, gave a detailed overview of the architecture, showed demonstration cases and presented business groups & scenarios. The proposed scheme gained the interest of the participants, who raised quite a few questions and gave positive feedback.

Did you miss it? Don’t worry, you can watch our presentation by clicking on this link. 

D^2EPC's second newsletter is out

Aug 30, 2021

In our second newsletter, which celebrates 1 year of the project you can read about the progress we have made so far, materials we have developed and events we have attended! You can find it here.

SpliTech2021 - Paper accepted for presentation and publication

Jul 15, 2021

'D^2EPC: Next Generation Digital and Dynamic Energy Performance Certificates' paper has been accepted for presentation at "SpliTech2021, technical paper: Energy track" and for publication in the conference proceedings!

6th International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Technologies 2021 SpliTech2021 will feature a technical and professional program related to today’s hottest topics: Smart city/environment, Energy, Engineering Modelling and Health. The conference, organised by the University of Split (FESB) will take place in Split and  Bol (island of Brac), Croatia, together with virtual access to the conference (hybrid conference), September 8-11, 2021.

The manuscript introduces a high-level representation of the D^2EPC architecture, elaborating on individual components and their interaction, towards delivering the envisioned final enriched web-platform that will enable dynamic Energy Performance Certificates based on (near)real-time field data.

You can find the paper here.

Web workshop “Building Energy Performance Certificates: Convergent evolution?!”

Jul 01, 2021

​We are glad to inform you about D^2EPC's participation in the web Workshop "Building Energy Performance Certificates: Convergent evolution?!".

The workshop was held on 1^st July 2021, 10h00-11h30 and was organised by U-CERT Project and EPB Center. Together with 6 invited representatives of the Next Generation EPCertficates Horizon 2020 project cluster, we took the opportunity to learn, exchange and identify the most sensible ways to go forward together.

Building Energy Performance Certificates (EPCertificates, EPCs) have now been around in the EU's Member States for at least 10 years. Underpinned by the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD), building performance assessment methodologies (and related certification processes) have been prepared at national levels leading to more than 30 different methodologies.

The EU's market is still fragmented due to the different approaches of the Member States, hindering leapfrogging for immediately reaping the multiple benefits of continuously improving and optimizing the performance of the buildings.

In the panel discussion, the representative of our D^2EPC Project Mrs Panagiota Chatzipanagiotidou spoke about the challenges posed by this for building performance processes in practice and vis-a-vis the EU's climate and energy targets. She also spoke about the activities that our project is carrying out to facilitate and support the mitigation of these problems.

The other sister projects that also participated in this workshop were the following:

• X-tendo: eXTENDing the energy performance assessment and certification schemes via a mOdular approach
  
• U-CERT: Towards a new generation of user-centred Energy Performance Assessment and Certification
• QualDeEPC: High-quality Energy Performance Assessment and Certification in Europe Accelerating Deep Energy
• E-DYCE: Energy  flexible  DYnamic  building  Certification
• EPC RECAST: Energy Performance Certificate Recast
• ePANACEA: Smart European Energy Performance AssessmeNt And CErtificAtion
  

Innovation actions reinforcing and complementing the current building energy performance schemes

Jun 01, 2021

​With the Renovation Wave Strategy, the European Commission aims to at least double renovation rates in the next ten years and make sure renovations lead to higher energy and resource efficiency. For supporting this overarching aim the European Commission plans to further improve the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), reinforcing the role of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). In favour of the evolution of EPC schemes, the four ongoing Horizon 2020 Innovation Actions for the Next Generation EPCs, including D^2EPC, participated on 19.05.2021 in a lively and informative panel discussion moderated by EuroACE and hosted in the BUILD UP portal, sharing insights on "What is needed to strengthen the information role of EPCs?", "What is needed to improve the quality of EPC?", "What is needed to improve the coverage of EPC?".

Click here for further information on the event!

Published research article by FRC!

May 11, 2021

We are happy to share with you that researchers from our consortium partner FRC (Frederic Research Center) recently got their research article published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects (Taylor & Francis):

‘’Adoption of a holistic framework for innovative sustainable renewable energy development: a case study’’ by Angeliki Kylili, Qahtan Thabit, Abdallah Nassour & Paris A. Fokaides

In this study, they propose a four-tiered methodological approach to identify the opportunities and assess their potential for contributing to the green transition of western Africa.

The article can be found through the following link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15567036.2021.1904058

Congratulations!

D^2EPC project participates in the "Next Gen EPCerts H2020 Cluster" Workshop

Apr 23, 2021

The Going far together / Building forward together activities of the cluster for a Next Generation of EPCs are on the way. On 23. 04. 2021, the representatives of the project D^2EPC participated in an exchange workshop between all 7 ongoing next generation EPC projects.

For making a meaningful, impactful and lasting contribution to the evolution process of the European Building Performance Assessment and Certification (both mandatory and voluntary) the Next Gen EPCertificates cluster of H2020 projects strongly believes in enabling and facilitating an open dialogue and structured exchange in between the sister initiatives.

The main scope was to explore together synergies and join forces for successfully implementing the individual projects and overall maximizing the impact at cluster level especially in terms of communication, dissemination, exploitation and technical advocacy at both EU and national levels.

On behalf of the D^2EPC Project Dr. Apostolos Tsolakis provided an overview of the D^2EPC project and introduced its objectives and expected results.

For further information on the event and the 7 sister projects check the 5 min pitches on this link!

2nd Plenary meeting

Apr 21, 2021

The consortium of D^2EPC had a two-day online 2nd Plenary meeting that took place on 21st and 22nd April 2021. Meeting was led by Project coordinator CERTH. The main purpose of the meeting was to update each other on the progress of our work, discuss issues and set goals for the future. We started with work progress of WP1, where all the first parts of the tasks are already completed. After coffee break we continued with WP2 which has recently started. We had a discussion regarding all the open issues and concluded with a workshop about the Architecture Consensus. On the second day we were introduced with the progress of tasks in WP3, WP5 and WP7. It was indeed beneficial to have the opportunity to groupthink, review, debate and consult with all the partners and share our ideas. We concluded the two-day meeting with a workshop on EPC calculation methodology for asset and operation rating. It was great seeing you all!

Partners involved in WP2 have held an internal workshop

Apr 15, 2021

​The key point of the workshop that took place on 15^th April 12:00-13:30 and was led by KTU was to present an overview of the WP2 "Development of the Operational Framework for dEPC Schemes". We discussed the KPIs, tasks progress, working plans and the interactions between the tasks.

This WP2 which started in M6 and will last throughout the life of the project, has the following objectives:

• To analyze and define a set of indicators to be included in the next generation EPCs, including SRI, LCA and economic indicators and taking into account user driven models (thermal/vision comfort, occupancy).
• To deliver the system's information model to optimally support information flow among the various components.
• To deliver the necessary requirements and steps for ensuring a common way for auditing and implementation.

Each of the task leaders of this work package have highlighted the most important aspects of the tasks and the progress made so far.

T2.1: Smart Readiness indicators Analysis for EPCs, led by CLEO, the objective is to establish the framework and scope of SRIs integration in the dynamic EPC scheme.

T2.2: Human-comfort and wellbeing Indicators Elicitation, led by HYP, the objective is to adapt, configure algorithms and models for the definition and extraction of several profiles that impact the overall dynamic building performance mainly from the user's comfort and wellbeing point of view.

T2.3: Energy performance & LCA Indicators Analysis for EPCs, led by FRC, the objective is to propose additional indicators, which demonstrate the environmental performance of buildings, for their introduction in the next-generation EPCs. The idea is to assess the existing indicators and try to justify them to be incorporated in D2EPC.

T2.4: Analysis of cost and economic indicators for EPCs, led by DEMO, the objective is to propose additional indicators, which will enable the financial assessment of buildings energy upgrade measures. This task has not started yet, it will start on the M10, and the steps to be realized include the documentation of the economic indicators which may be employed in EPCs.

To conclude KTU leader of T2.5: D^2EPC Information Model has presented the information flow that will lead to the extension of the current standards/protocols used for certificate issuance including all the new features proposed by the D^2EPC framework, and the additional indicators delivered under T2.1-T2.4.

D^2EPC participates in the workshop "Building energy performance certificates for the people"

Mar 30, 2021

The workshop took place on 30th March 12:00-13:30. Led by IRI-UL, and targeted at all 6 projects, the main focus of this workshop was to discuss how useful are the EPCs for the general public and how it is perceived in their work. They have also analysed the real needs and expectations and how to address them in the evolution process of EPCs.

Mrs. Panagiota Chatzipanagiotidou presented the D^2EPC Project, going through its objectives and expected results. Together with her presentation, we were able to learn more about the D^2EPC sister projects. There are 7 ongoing Horizon 2020 projects contributing to the evolution of the existing energy performance assessment and certification process (at national level in EU's Member States). Additional 3 to 4 Horizon 2020 projects will be funded and commence later this year. Representants of the following projects have participated in this interesting Workshop:

• X-tendo: eXTENDing the energy performance assessment and certification schemes via a mOdular approach
• U-CERT: Towards a new generation of user-centred Energy Performance Assessment and Certification
• QualDeEPC: High-quality Energy Performance Assessment and Certification in Europe Accelerating Deep Energy
• E-DYCE: Energy flexible DYnamic building Certification
• EPC RECAST: Energy Performance Certificate Recast
• ePANACEA: Smart European Energy Performance AssessmeNt And CErtificAtion
• D^2EPC: Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness
  

The D^2EPC project is part of the Enlit Europe platform

Mar 24, 2021

The objectives of the D^2EPC Dissemination and Communication Plan include, among others, promoting activities and facilitating knowledge exchange between

• main stakeholders in the field of periodic energy classification of buildings based on their operational performance;
• policy makers;
• industry;
• research community and
• companies.
  

To achieve a high visibility of our project and to promote an active interaction with the main stakeholders as well as facilitate synergy between different H2020 Projects funded with the same or similar objectives, D^2EPC has become part of the Enlit Europe platform. Enlit is the European roadmap for the energy transition and consists of several elements to boost and support the energy transition. It aims to showcase the research and projects' results carried out in Europe focused on improving Energy Efficiency.

Through this platform, D^2EPC will share its project information and exchange knowledge with the energy certification and engineering/construction industry community, and with potential future customers of the project results.

The Enlit community will meet on its online platform and for three days in Milan, from 30 November to 2 December 2021, where we could get to know and inspire each other and take steps forward the energy transition.

Click here for more information.

D^2EPC’s first newsletter is out!

Mar 15, 2021

​The newsletter gives an overview about what was going on in the period from the beginning of the project in September until now. You can read about the deliverables that were conducted in this period, find out more about partners involved, see what is the D^2EPC impact and what are our future activities. You can find it here.

D^2EPC project for next generation EPCs

Oct 23, 2020

​The H2020 project D^2EPC aspires to set the grounds for the next generation dynamic Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). The aim is to cause energy-efficient behavioral change and stimulate smart buildings. The D^2EPC digital platform will enable the issuance of next generation EPCs on a regular basis and will be armored with additional services.

On September 10^th and 11^st 2020, the D^2EPC project 'Next-generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness' held its online kick-off meeting. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research & Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 892984. It is coordinated by Dr Dimosthenis Ioannidis representing CERTH, Centre for Research & Technology Hellas, one of the leading research centres in Greece with important scientific and technological achievements.

Digital twin BIM

D^2EPC aspires to set the grounds for the next generation dynamic Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). The proposed framework engages actual measured data coming from smart devices and introduces a set of novel and user-friendly indicators. For this we make use of 6D Level 3 BIM for producing a building's digital twin representation. The proposed indicators for smart-readiness, sustainability, environmental, human comfort and financial aspects will make EPCs a realistic, accurate and comprehensive information source that can induce energy efficient behavioural change and stimulate towards smart buildings. The D^2EPC digital platform will enable the issuance of next generation EPCs on a regular basis and will be armored with additional services. The project will last 3 years and will conclude in August 2023.