WIP - Renewable Energies

The AgroFossilFree project is supporting Fossil-Energy-Free Technologies and Strategies (FEFTS) in agriculture by coordinating several stakeholder actions and by providing information on FEFTS in agriculture. Thereby, special emphasis is placed on applications of photovoltaics (PV) in agriculture. The core objective of the project is to set-up an online platform for farmers, advisors, researchers, industrial partners and other actors on which they can find useful information on FEFTS in agriculture. The AgroFossilFree project contributes to the High Level EU Strategies (i.e. EU Green Deal and Farm to Fork strategy) as it aims to decrease the use of fossil energy in any farming process. It also contributes to close the gap between the available FEFTS and the everyday EU agricultural practices by promoting effective exchange of novel ideas and by exchanging information between research, industry, extension services and the farming community. If this gap closes, European agriculture could become more sustainable with minimum energy, environmental and socioeconomic impacts. With the knowledge that is collected, classified and presented to actors in the agricultural field, the European agricultural sector is able to promote and comply with the fossil energy use reduction policies, the related legal and regulatory frameworks and sustainable food production practices. This paper presents the current status of the AgroFossilFree project which is funded by the Horizon 2020 Programme of the European Commission.

Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 7.2 requests a substantial increase in the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix by 2030. Renewable energy production in all sectors has to be evaluated for its contribution to reach this target. Biomass for energy production has gained a bad reputation over the past years due to the “food versus fuel” debate or reported unsustainable practices. The BIOPLAT-EU project is employing geoinformation technologies combined with sustainability and economic expertise to more accurately evaluate the sustainability of bioenergy value chains. The project has three main parts: first, the generation of a pan-European map of marginal, underutilized, and contaminated (MUC) lands potentially usable for bioenergy production. This is realized by employing remote sensing time series, existing Copernicus, and other spatial data sets. Second, the generation of a web-based geographical information system (GIS) connecting the MUC lands with other important information sources necessary to assess sustainability. Thisrd, the sustainability assessment includes not only typical social and environmental sustainability indicators like soil, water, or greenhouse gas emissions, but also economic sustainability indicators like employment. Current financial barriers are addressed by integrating innovative financing solutions considering SDG target 12.A.

Workshop organized by INDIGO project as a collaborative activity among EU funded projects in the area of District Heating and Cooling. The objective of the workshop was twofold: (1) to create a cluster of European funded projects working in the area of District Energy Systems; and (2) to create a networking opportunity in which to share experiences on the results and difficulties of the researches, and to identify synergies.

It is generally expected that in the future, photovoltaics will be able to contribute substantially to the mainstream power production, and that through their widespread commercialization, Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) systems will become the backbone of the zero energy building (ZEB) European target for 2020 [1]. An outlook on the BIPV market estimated the worldwide installed BIPV capacity during 2016 to nearly 2 GW, confirming the growing trend, increasing by 12.6% compared to 2015, when 1.78 GW were installed [2]. But the integration of BIPV is still going slow, which is unfortunate considering its potential. Despite technical promise, there is a notable disparity between the progress made in terms of the technology and the knowledge and skills of the professionals (architects, engineers, designers, planners) who are ultimately responsible for the integration of BIPV systems. This paper presents the results of the Dem4BIPV project, which has been designed to develop master-level courseware on BIPV for various European academic institutes. The structure of the lectures, the ideas behind practical assignments and on potential examquestions will be presented. Furthermore, a conceptualframework of the curriculum’s content will be presented. The goal of the project is to develop ˜40 ECTS master-curriculum focusing on BIPV.

The large potential for energy savings in buildings led the EU Commission to adopt the 2010/31/EU Directive on the energy performance of buildings with the objective that all new buildings are Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) by 2020. Renewable energy technologies, and in particular the integration of photovoltaic systems in the building environment offer many possibilities to play a key role within the NZEB scenario. The objective of PVSITES project is to drive BIPV technology to a large market deployment by demonstrating an ambitious portfolio of building-integrated solar technologies and systems, giving a forceful, reliable answer to the market requirements identified by the industrial members of the consortium in their day-to-day activity.