photovoltaic

The area around Sneinton Road in Nottingham is considered to be the most appropriate for the development of the REMOURBAN demo site in the United Kingdom. The site is nearby the existing district heating and the pipeline reaches Bio City, situated very close to Sneinton Road. There is substantial Nottingham City Council housing in the area that needs upgrading to a much more energy-efficient state. Near the site is one of the famous city landmarks – George Green’s Windmill – and the science centre.

The city of Helsingborg had adopted an ambitious climate action plan by which the city had already achieved 88 % CO2 emissions reductions (compared with the 1997 level) and a less than 20 % share of fossil fuel, the final goal being carbon neutrality, or even exporting carbon-neutral energy to neighbouring areas. With this aim, the NEXT-BUILDINGS project realised very low-energy buildings as the first phase of a huge and very ambitious 311 000 m2 ecodistrict development.

Houthaven used to be a harbour and timber handling area, situated close to Amsterdam city centre, where many wood factories and related companies were located. After a long history of industrial activities, Houthaven is being transformed into a residential area. In total, seven islands are under development, providing space for 2 200 dwellings, 70 houseboats and 50 000 m2 facilities. In the NEXT-BUILDINGS project, 30 000 m2 of net zero-energy buildings were realised within Houthaven in the area named Blok 0.

The Turkish demonstration site of NEED4B is on the Özyeğin  University campus, located in Nisantepe, Istanbul, north-west Turkey. The Nisantepe region is a newly developed residential site situated very close to the residential and financial region of Ümraniye. The building in focus is in part of the campus buildings that host the School of Languages (ScOLa). The total building area is 17 756 m2 spread across seven levels.

The NEED4B demonstration site in Sweden features two buildings, which represent pre-fabricated low-energy wooden framed villas of between 140 and 200 m2. The houses were manufactured beforehand and then assembled at the selected locations. One building was assembled in a new attractive residential area near Varberg and used as display house for a time. The second building of the same kind was assembled at a research facility in Borås and used as a full-scale test lab for energy-efficient technologies and construction details, with artificial user-behaviour loads.

The NEED4B pilot site in Lecce (Italy) is located in a central and strategic part of the city, a few metres away from the historic centre and in front of a recreational space for students. It is a mixed-use building composed of four floors above ground and three floors underground. The first floor underground and the ground floor consist of shops and commercial spaces, while the first, second and third floors above ground are for offices. The building is surrounded by green spaces, a private parking area for the offices, and a bus stop.

The city of Valladolid, located in central Spain with a Mediterranean continental climate, participated in the DIRECTION project that aimed at demonstrating how the use of very innovative and cost-effective energy-efficient technologies can lead to the achievement of very-low-energy new buildings. This objective, along with the effective adoption of low-energy buildings, was achieved by switching to a model whereby energy efficiency provided value to the market and represented an attractive asset across the whole of the value chain.