Energy consumption in urban areas is increasingly recognized as an important source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cities account for approximately two-thirds of global primary energy consumption and 71% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. Energy certification of buildings is a key policy instrument for reducing the energy consumption and improving the energy performance of new and existing buildings.

SUNSHINE – Smart UrbaN ServIces for Higher eNergy Efficiency is a step towards this policy and a tool to improve the energy efficiency of (public) buildings and urban areas. Within the European funded project SUNSHINE a smart service platform for planners and public administration will be developed which extracts analytical indicators necessary for the definition of energy saving policies for the existing public buildings asset and to define energy pre-certification mechanism. SUNSHINE uses three scenarios which lead into a smart service platform that will be accessible from web-based client and from an App for smartphones and tablets. One of these scenarios will be “heating and cooling forecast and alerts”. Within this scenario localized weather forecasts available through interoperable web-services will be used to ensure optimization of energy consumption of heating and cooling systems through automatic alerts that will be sent to the mobile application. In case of a predicted sharp and significant increase or decrease of temperature, an alert informs the user about the extreme changes in weather conditions which allows him to react immediately by changing the heating temperature in order to obtain monetary savings and a lower carbon foot print.

The SUNSHINE scenarios will be piloted in the context of nine sites across five countries (Italy, Austria, Malta, Croatia and Greece). SUNSHINE will be piloted for duration of 12 months and it is foreseen energy and emission savings within the various pilots from 10% to 30%.

CEIT Alanova as a project partner in SUNSHINE is reponsible for the workpackage dissemination and networking. For the deployment of the SUNSHINE scenarios serves the Multiversum (a multi functional event halle, built 2011) in Schwechat.

Find more information on the project website www.sunshineproject.eu