The basic idea is to embed the waste from building demolition (fragmented bricks, fragmented plaster or concrete, fragmented glasses, machined wood from windows frame or from wood beams after demolition etc.) in a geopolymer matrix to produce prefabricated panels for different use. The main objective of InnoWEE is in fact the development of an optimized reuse of Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) materials producing high add value prefabricated insulating and radiating panels to be used in energy efficient buildings. The proposal is based on: 1) Recovery, selection and disassembling of CDW that will be characterized and eventually treated to yield suitable raw materials to be used for production of prefabricated components. 2) Development of new high performance prefabricated insulating geopolymeric panels for building walls envelopes and radiating panels for indoor wall and ceilings with low environmental impact, low embodied energy, low CO2 emissions, high thermal performance. Panels will be fabricated recycling cement, bricks, mortars, glass and wood reaching at least 30% of CDW. 3) To install the panels in demo sites characterized by different climate to evaluate their performance in terms of reducing energy use and minimizing environmental impacts. 4) To use an integrated design process and a holistic approach for the whole life cycle of the materials and components and produce a material that is cost effective, competitive, robust, reliable and low maintenance. 5) To create practical and sustainable building solutions that are easy to integrate into building designs, easy to install, take in consideration the needs of the stakeholders that strongly influence the market, and have been tested to meet all the current standards.

Seven major municipalities in the Athens Metropolitan Area join efforts to launch showcase energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, utilizing innovative financial tools and attracting private investments. The projects comprise energy efficiency interventions in 116 municipal buildings, integration of a total 3.2 MW of photovoltaics on the roofs of these buildings and re-lamping for the municipal lighting. Total energy savings is 45.6 GWh/y and renewable electricity production is 4.8 GWh/y. Total cost for interventions is 20.24 M€ and the PRODESA cost is 1.06 M€. To achieve its objectives, the project shall focus on optimal bundling of the fragmented municipal projects to achieve considerable size, reasonable payback time and risk diversification. Bundling is also expected to lower processing costs. Pooling of resources is used to optimize financial results for all parties and to ensure high participation of ESCOs in the tenders. The newly introduced National Revolving Fund for Energy Efficiency and the Utility ESCO Fund will be part of the pool. Pooling will facilitate the exploitation of innovative financing schemes. Crowdfunding has been recently introduced in the Greek legislation and this tool will be carefully studied and applied. PRODESA is the first of its kind effort in Greece and aims to significantly contribute to the Energy Performance Contracting take-off. For this reason the project consortium has pooled together Key Actors such as the National Center for energy efficiency, the European Crowdfunding Network and entities with technical, financial and legal expertise. Being a showcase project, it emphasizes on capacity building, replicability, dissemination and exploitation of results. Two replicator municipalities are directly involved in the project and a network of at least 30 replicators will be initiated with the help of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece.

AI4Gov is a joint effort of policy makers, public institutions / organizations, legal, Social Science and Humanities and Big Data/AI experts to unveil the potentials of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data technologies for developing evidence-based innovations, policies, and policy recommendations to harness the public sphere, political power, and economic power for democratic purposes. The project will also uphold fundamental rights and values standards of individuals when using AI and Big Data technologies. Hence, the project aims to contribute to the promising research landscape that seeks to address ethical, trust, discrimination, and bias issues by providing an in-depth analysis and solutions addressing the challenges that various stakeholders in modern democracies are faced with when attempts are made to mitigate the negative implications of Big Data and AI. In this direction, the project will introduce solutions and frameworks towards a two-fold sense, to facilitate policymakers on the development of automated, educated and evidence-based decisions and to increase the trust of citizens in the democratic processes and institutions. Moreover, the project will leverage the capabilities of state-of-the-art tools for providing un-bias, discrimination-free, fair, and trusted AI. These tools will be validated in terms of their ability to provide technical and/or organisational measures, causal models for bias and discrimination, and standardized methodologies for achieving fairness in AI.

INPERSO is a holistic deep renovation programme addressing the building’s entire lifecycle and combining industrialisation and personalisation. The project will deliver inclusive, affordable, efficient, and sustainable renovation, adaptable to various climate zones and building typologies, but focused on residential and heritage buildings. Aiming to deliver a near-market solution, INPERSO is comprised of five highly exploitable, integrated results (IRs) plus an underlying, human-centric methodology for low-carbon renovation. New technological components leveraging the advantages of prefabrication, pre-integration and robotic 3D printing will drastically reduce the time (>50%) and costs (>25%) of construction, and increase resource efficiency, productivity and quality, coupled with waste reduction (>40%). The project highlights the advantages of digital solutions, by integrating scan-to-BIM, AI, AR and ML into the established RE Suite platform, creating a solid foundation for harmonising information flows and addressing the fragmentation challenges of the sector. These resources will also be used to optimise building energy performance and indoor environment quality, as well as improving the energy footprint of the renovation process, in addition to improving working conditions and safety. INPERSO will be demonstrated in Spain, Netherlands, and Greece, forming energy communities and promoting sustainable energy use. Ambitious upscaling and replication plans, supported by green financing and six business models, will be implemented to generate local and EU-wide impacts. The Consortium consists of 8 research organisations, 8 SMEs, 2 large enterprises and 3 NPOs, privately investing €4.7M in the project.

PLURAL aims to design validate and demonstrate a palette of versatile, adaptable, scalable, off-site prefabricated plug and play facades accounting for user needs (“Plug-and-Use” kits). Three different core systems are assessed, coupling heating-cooling, ventilation, heat harvesting systems with smart windows, 3D printing, low carbon footprint and nano-enabled coating materials to reduce the building total primary energy consumption to less than 60 kWh/m2 per year and ensure on-site renewable energy generation to more than 50 kWh/m2 reaching NZEB status for different European climates and different residential building typologies. A BIM based big data management platform and a Decision Support Tool (DST) are coupled to enable the optimal component selection, and integration, best PnU kit design, speedy and low-cost manufacturing and installation. Renewable energy and smart control systems are coupled with low environmental footprint prefabricated façade components to create the integrated all-in-one PnU kits for post war residential building deep renovation. The project creates best practice renovation examples for the residential sector based on innovation and competitiveness, with benefits for the citizens and the environment. It develops business cases and models for key stakeholders and improves the life cycle based performance standards applied in the building sector. The solutions are implemented in three real and three virtual residential buildings to evaluate reduction in renovation time and costs, the PnU kit performance, carbon saving and users’ acceptance. The selected buildings cover all European climatic zones and are representative residential typologies. PLURAL will achieve at least 50% reduction in the time required for deep renovation of e.g. multi-family blocks. 58% reduction in renovation costs will be achieved through off-site prefabrication lean manufacturing and construction, interactively supported by the BIM based platform and DST.