Funding programme

Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation. Read more about the Horizon Europe programme here.

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Call overview

This call aims to support the integration ofenergy data with lifecycle data (e.g. GHG emissions and removals, materials, water, health, comfort, life cycle cost and value, etc.), in order to optimise the performance of buildings and buildings’ portfolios.

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Expected Outcome

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Increase in the availability of key energy and environmental performance indicators from new or improved building management systems that go beyond energy management to life-cycle approach (e.g. environmental performance, circularity, comfort and well-being, indoor environmental quality, accessibility, safety, structural performance, resilience and climate risk vulnerability).
• Improved tools for the planning and management of building assets and portfolios of buildings including energy management, environmental performance, renovation optimisation and investment planning.
• Increased availability and access to lifecycle data of buildings and buildings portfolios and enhanced interoperability and synergies among data sharing platforms.

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Scope

European buildings are producing an increasing amount of data on energy and non-energy uses. More and better data can lead to enhanced consumer information, contribute to an effective management of energy grids and support the creation of innovative energy services, new business models and financing schemes for distributed clean energy. Data is also a key enabler for reliable and effective policymaking, e.g. for climate policies.

Several recent projects have focused on developing big data facilities and data analytics tools to monitor the energy performance of buildings based on energy related data. More work is needed to integrate energy data with lifecycle data (e.g. GHG emissions and removals, materials, water, health, comfort, life cycle cost and value, etc.), in order to optimise the performance of buildings and buildings’ portfolios across the board and support the decision making of owners/tenants/developers to transform existing and planned physical assets (buildings or buildings’ assets, e.g. distributed energy generation, e-mobility recharging infrastructure, micro-grids, building systems).

Proposals are expected to address at least two of the three following points:

• Develop new or upgrade existing building management systems enhanced with data analytics and real-time digital twinning tools. The developed systems should take into account buildings monitoring data (e.g. from embedded sensors/actuators), users’ preferences (e.g. related to comfort and well-being, safety, and energy flexibility), and surrounding environmental conditions (e.g. urban density, micro-climate, etc.) in order to optimise operational energy and environmental performance.
• Develop new or upgrade existing decision support tools for the management of building assets and portfolios of buildings. The developed tools should be able to deliver energy (e.g. energy monitoring, renovation optimisation) and non-energy services (investment planning, risk assessment – e.g. risk-related, fault detection, predictive maintenance, surveillance & safety, comfort, occupancy satisfaction). The tools should be co-developed with the potential users (e.g. facility managers, fund managers etc.) and tested in real market conditions.
• Develop new or upgrade existing data sharing platforms including lifecycle data of buildings or buildings portfolios. The platforms should connect relevant market actors (technology providers, developers, aggregators, DSOs, ESCOS) with relevant user groups (consumers, energy communities), policy makers and the financial sector and offer innovative services (e.g. flexibility, prediction, investment planning etc.). The platforms should be co-developed with the participation of the potential user groups and tested in real market conditions linking, where relevant, to digital logbooks and to and other relevant initiatives (e.g. the Smart Readiness Indicator under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive).

Proposals should contribute to the activities of the Built4People partners and to the Built4People network of innovation clusters.

Proposals are expected to implement at least three large -scale pilots to demonstrate the chosen system. The pilots should cover a variety of building typologies (residential, commercial, public etc.) and use cases (energy monitoring, renovation optimisation, investment planning, risk assessment etc.)

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’ (Built4People). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on results to the European Partnership ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’ (Built4People) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

Specific Topic Conditions:

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 6-8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

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Eligibility

To be eligible for funding, applicants must be established in one of the following countries:

• the Member States of the European Union, including their outermost regions;
• the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) linked to the Member States;
• countries associated to Horizon Europe;
• low- and middle-income countries.

See the full list in the General Annexes.

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Consortium composition

Unless otherwise provided for in the specific call conditions, only legal entities forming a consortium are eligible to participate in actions provided that the consortium includes, as beneficiaries, three legal entities independent from each other and each established in a different country as follows:

• at least one independent legal entity established in a Member State; and
• at least two other independent legal entities, each established in different Member States or Associated Countries.

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Budget available

The total indicative budget for the topic is EUR 10.00 million.

The funding rate is 60% of the eligible costs, except for non-profit legal entities where the funding rate is up to 100% of the total eligible costs.