Industrialisation of building envelope kits for the renovation market (IA)

Topic description

Specific Challenge:

A wide range of products dedicated to insulation, energy supply and comfort are available on the market. However, their integration into buildings undergoing deep renovation and the interconnectivity between these products in such buildings still raise many challenges because of lack of affordable, ready-to-go, all-in-one, tailor made reliable solutions for future customers. Such holistic solutions are intended first and mostly for major existing residential buildings.

Research and Innovations is needed for all-inclusive envelope solutions addressing deep renovation of buildings that are sufficiently flexible and customisable to address significant market segments in EU reaching Near Zero-Energy Building (NZEB) standards.

Proposals should:

• Develop plug & build smart components and modules, including insulation materials, heating and cooling elements, ventilation, smart windows and possibly energy production, harvesting and storage with the specific connecting and controlling parts and with options to integrate a large panel of different elements with their dedicated toolbox;
• Develop decision support tools for the selection of the refurbishment solution based on LCA (Life Cycle Assessment)/LCC (Life Cycle Cost Assessments), addressing global environmental impact, cost for energy use and improvements to Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), comfort and health. The support tool should consider embodied energy, use of resources, material losses, moisture performance, maintenance costs, possible disassembly and consequent recyclability (including the use of Construction Demolition Waste - CDW). Decision support should be multi-objective and the solutions should be configured to the needs and requirements of the end user;
• Include adaptable Building Management Systems (BMS) easy to use, providing assistance for eventual step-by-step renovation and long term maintenance of the assets;
• Develop case modelling applications, analysis prior to installations, guide for installers and support for decommissioning, with adequate assistance/tutorials for users and building managers.
• Develop the first elements of a solid plan for industrial uptake at a large scale, meeting eco-construction and eco-production standards (minimising waste, energy and water consumption);
• Include the whole envelope of two to three real scale residential buildings in different climate zones, retrofitted together with at least three virtual installations in total of the plug & play elements in other existing buildings to support the proof of concept, showing clear evidence of technical and financial viability.

​Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the Introduction to the LEIT part of this Work Programme.

Activities should start at TRL 5 and achieve TRL 7 at the end of the project.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 6 and 8 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

• Demonstrate retrofitting plug & build solutions and tools reaching NZEB standards suitable for mass production by industry for buildings under deep renovation;
• Decrease of retrofitting time and costs by at least 50% compared to current renovation process for the same building type;
• Improve Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) standards;
• Accelerate the renovation process by enabling access to better products.

Relevant indicators and metrics, with baseline values, should be clearly stated in the proposal.

Contractual Public-Private Partnerships (cPPPs)
EeB
Open Innovation