The demonstration site includes one building constructed with prefabricated concrete panel elements. It is a typical soviet apartment building, and it is part of a large housing estate. The key characteristics are:

The MORE-CONNECT site in Cesis, Latvia is located in a rural area where the average heating season lasts for 208 days. The demonstration building is a typical soviet building, constructed from silicate bricks and widely built in suburban and remote areas. The total floor space is 559 m2.

Due to the building’s size there are limited possibilities to apply for EU funds. There are also extra construction costs due to building remote location. 

The first pilot project within MORE-CONNECT in the Netherlands is situated in Rijssen, Adriaan van Ostadestraat, and is part of a building block that consists of five houses. The energy label of this house is F and the average monthly energy bill exceeds 185 euros per month plus fixed rates for connection.

During the pilot implementation tasks, the energy metering system was deployed in 88 social houses in Plymouth (UK).

The demonstration building is a three-block residential building located in the Portugalete municipality in Greater Bilbao and is developed by the Basque Government’s Department of Housing, Public Works and Transport. The implemented technologies had to be energy-efficient in order to achieve the target value but at the same time low-cost, because the developer couldn’t afford expensive technology. The social scope of the project is also important as it is oriented towards social housing.

The city of Malmö participated in the BUILDSMART project with the construction of four different types of new buildings – a hotel, office and two residential buildings – with a focus on their sustainability. The buildings are located in two areas of the city – Malmö Live, in central Malmö, and in the south-east part of the city, known as Hyllie.

The prefabricated timber modules, developed by the BERTIM project for renovation of buildings, will be demonstrated in the KUBIK experimental building, located in Bilbao (Spain). Developed by Tecnalia, KUBIK is a research infrastructure consisting of three floors and a cellar. The building is fully monitored (energy consumption and comfort conditions) and allows a full assessment of installation procedures and energy performance of components in real conditions. 

The prefabricated timber modules, developed by the BERTIM project for renovation of buildings, will be demonstrated in the KUBIK experimental building, located in Bilbao (Spain). The solutions will be improved based on the lessons leraned through the testing process and the global system will then be demonstrated in real buildings, in two social houses. One of them is a linear block of five floors located in Madrid (Spain). The structure consists of 3 concrete load wearing walls with no insulation.

In large cities such as Cologne, heat generation accounts for more than two-thirds of stationary energy consumption. This is why it is necessary to consider ways to make more efficient use of non-fossil energy sources and create more sustainable heating systems in metropolitan areas. One idea is to recover heat from wastewater systems that is currently simply flushed away.

The city of Genoa is one of the first Italian cities to commit to the implementation and promotion of the smart city holistic approach and has invested efforts into involving diverse stakeholders to work together with the objective of making a real change in sustainability.