Photo: Joanneum Research GmbH
At the beginning of October the kick-off meeting of the European Horizon 2020 project EXCESS took place in Graz, Austria. The project focuses on the energy transformation of European buildings and neighbourhoods into energy flexible Local Energy Communities (LEC), which generate more energy from renewable technologies than they consume themselves. 21 partners from industry and R&D will work on innovative technologies, systems and new approaches that also will be demonstrated in the course of the project using four demonstration sites in different climate zones.
Representing the Central European climate, a former industrial area in Graz will be completely transformed in terms of use and social community as well as energy supply. A central aspect of the planned LEC concept is the smart orchestration of all existing energy-relevant components and systems as well as the consistent use of different energy flexibility options.
AEE – Institute for Sustainable Technologies is responsible for the implementation of the Austrian demonstration site and coordinates the activities including the development of building facades with integrated energy production, thermal activation of vertical building components as well as the development of “smart contract” technologies making models for user participation possible. Technologies particularly interesting for the latter are energy generation technologies and energy storages. Questions relating to energy trading and trading of energy flexibility of buildings will also be dealt with.
The European research project EXCESS is scheduled to run for four years.
