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Energy audits are an integral part of the overall energy savings strategy in the building sector. The signif- icance of energy audits was confirmed both by their adoption by the European Energy Savings Directive (2012/27) as well as by the development and issuance of a large number of European standards (standard series EN16247, EN 15378, EN 16798, EN 16946, EN 16947 etc.), related to the energy audit of buildings and building systems. However, current practices for conducting energy audits in buildings do not adopt the latest developments in the field of Industry 4.0 practices, resulting in the general belief within the engineering community of building physics that energy auditing can be further updated and improved. This work aims to introduce a novel approach for the improvement of existing building energy audit practices with the adaptation of building information models and associated data. The study presents the potential of evaluation process utilizing building information models for constituent energy audit procedure – assessment of building energy consumption related to building envelope. The question of whether there is room for further adoption of digitization practices in carrying out energy audits, as well as the possibilities of developing new tools in this area are addressed. Following this, the main outcome of this study is the overview and analysis of Industry Foundation Classes schema building information model data structure and its interrelationships with the aim of using the extracted information to digitize energy audit procedures. Research approach covers digitization of building energy consumption assess- ment influenced by building envelope characteristics, as well as evaluation of economic and energy aspects for possible building shell optimization scenarios. The study also presents the results of a case study evaluation carried out with the developed tool using building envelope modification feature for various environment and economic parameters. Additionally, the architecture, and the rationale for the developed tool backed, used to extract necessary information for implementing building energy audits are presented. We finalize with the discussion on upcoming developments in the field and on future work of this study.

The investigation of building elements regarding energy saving is a paramount issue, with EU Directives driving achievement goals, focusing on buildings’ energy performance and energy efficiency. This work focuses on investigating thermal bridges in a new high-performance window installation. This work aims to investigate the thermal properties of windows installed in the thermal insulation layer and to compare different installation methods and thermal bridge evaluation methodologies from the point of view of thermal physics. The results show that comparing the obtained values of the thermal bridge according to two- and three-dimensional domain (2-D and 3-D) calculation methods, the values show a difference of 68%. After examining the method of installing a new high-performance window in the thermal insulation layer, the effect of installing a window on the wall of a building is highlighted in this work. Given that windows are the most thermally conductive elements in a building, this paper provides guidance for both the scientific community and practitioners regarding trends in thermal bridges that change completely when using different assessment methods.

The scientific community of building physics has known for decades that weathering has a significant effect on the condition of buildings. Weathering agents such as water, carbon dioxide and oxygen, potentially accelerate the natural deterioration of buildings, leading to undesirable results, especially in cases involving buildings of special cultural importance. Climate change and its effect on weather conditions may potentially accelerate the weathering of buildings.The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of climate change on weathering of building materials of heritage buildings under subtropical climatic conditions. As a case study, non-destructive measurements of 10 traditional buildings in Strovolos, an urban centre in Cyprus, were employed. To study the deterioration of buildings, non-destructive methods were utilized, namely infrared (IR) thermography. The deterioration was studied for different materials, different orientations, as well as for materials of different ages. Through qualitative and quantitative thermographs, the results demonstrate the significant effect of climate change on the deterioration of building materials.

The use of Digital Twin (DT) is becoming increasingly widespread in the construction industry. Considering that buildings are complex geometric structures that may change throughout their lifespan, it is essential to maintain up-to-date DT geometry. Despite its importance, the relation- ship between a building's physical geometry and its DT counterpart remains under-researched due to technical, financial, and practical challenges. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of current research on updating the geometry of DT in construction, identifying gaps and challenges for future research, with a focus on the life-cycle stages where updating the DT geometry is most relevant. Additionally, this paper examines the most used equipment and data collection methods, as well as the data processing and integration techniques used in DT. This study comprehensively reviews and analyses the DT concept, which involves the creation of a vir- tual model that accurately reflects the geometry of a physical object, and examines the DT con- cept from this perspective. Through a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliographic analy- sis, this research examines various methods for updating the geometry of a DT. The methodology involved analyzing a final sample of 56 articles that met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. On the basis of the analysis, the study identifies six main directions that recent publications in this field have focused on. These directions highlight the main achievements and obstacles in the field and include the use of UAV/photogrammetry and laser scanning as data collection methods for building geometry, data visualization, updating the geometry of the virtual model in manufactur- ing, the application of DT in modular construction, and structural monitoring. Based on the SLR, this study has identified key areas that require further research and existing challenges in updat- ing the geometry of the DT. Addressing these challenges will be critical to promoting the wide- spread adoption of DT in the construction industry. Therefore, the study highlights the impor- tance of updating geometry data in the DT to improve the quality of the data and maximize the benefits of technology in the construction sector.

The classification of the energy efficiency of buildings with the use of the energy performance certificate, con- stitutes a common practice for the building energy assessment performance community. The main stream in the field is the so-called asset rating, that is the calculation of the energy performance of buildings, whereas another option for the definition of the energy class of a building relies on its measured performance, named operational rating. Despite the fact that significant progress has been achieved in the field of smart sensors and smart buildings, effective solutions related to the employment of Industry 4.0 practices, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) or digital twins are not employed for the operational rating of buildings energy performance. This study aspires to introduce a comprehensive framework for the operational assessment of buildings energy performance, with the use of advanced tools and practices for building digitization. For the purpose of this study, a relevant set of operational indicators was employed, with the purpose to provide information, both to the landlords and the tenants, related to the actual energy performance of the building. The novelty of this study relies on the fact that for the extraction of the operational rating, a digital twin environment was used, employing smart sensors, real time measurements and a BIM environment. Within this study, the proposed concepts are demonstrated in a case study building of mixed used. This study aims to shed light to the development of practices for the remote and smart real time energy assessment of building units.

Sustainable mobility has been considered key in the pursuit of sustainable development in urban environments. During the last decades, a lot of innovative initiatives have been proposed and examined, most of them were site-specific and highly relevant to the local context. This case study review focuses on Nicosia, a car oriented, medium sized city, and attempts to define an intermodal walkability index for the city center. In a city like Nicosia where more than 90% of the daily trips are done completely by car, encouraging intermodal mobility with walking as part of the trip is an important first step to sustainable mobility. The aim of the paper is to present a model based upon the most impactful sustainability indicators when referring to pedestrian mobility, and therefore will create an intermodal walkability index for grading the walkability of an urban environment, in our case a particular, car-oriented one. The index was developed by using the latest version of pyQGIS, due to the fact that the algorithms that are being used in the calculation of this index are already part of the geospatial analysis toolbox contained within QGIS. The paper uses as a case study the municipality of Nicosia in Cyprus where it was proven that pedestrian transportation can be graded in terms of walkability from the private car drop point. The study has also discovered that the use of primary electricity generation and fossil fuels for transport can be reduced if problematic areas that have a low or negative sustainability score are managed in ways that will increase the score.

Energy performance certificates are being utilized through the European Union Member States to document and asses the energy performance of the building stock, while they are used as measures to investigate and adopt policies that would lower the final energy consumption and environmental footprint. After several years of implementation, the current EPC schemes have enlighten the domain energy efficiency in the building sector, but at the same time they have been identified with several challenges and deficiencies that deteriorate the quality of the results. This study performed under the H2020 project “Next-generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness (D^2EPC)“, aims to analyze the quality and weaknesses of the current EPC schemes and aspires to identify the technical challenges that currently exist, setting the grounds for the next generation dynamic EPCs. The present work reveals that current EPCs schemes are based on a cradle-to-gate rationale, completing their mission after the certificate to the building user, overlooking the user’s behavior and the actual energy performance of the building that might change dynamically within time. In this study, the idea of the dynamic EPCs is introduced, a certificate that will allow the monitoring of the actual performance of buildings and the users’ behavior profiles on a regular basis. The introduction of novel indicators and the integration of BIM and GIS are also discussed., CLIMA 2022 conference, 2022: CLIMA 2022 The 14th REHVA HVAC World Congress

Mock Target IR Thermography for indoor air temperature measurement has been proven as an effective meth- odology for steady-state conditions. This method uses vertical poles of known emissivity placed in a space to measure air temperature by employing IR thermography. Compared to thermocouple / point-by-point mea- surement, this technique allows obtaining air temperature values in a continuous line. Several poles can be installed in a space ensuring the collection of a large amount of air temperature data entries by taking a single IR image, whereas measurements in large spaces with hundreds of thermocouples would require complicated wiring and data collection hardware. However, for this approach to be more widely considered, such measurement techniques should be adaptable for transient conditions as well, as air temperature can fluctuate and change due to external climatic conditions, occupancy or faults in HVAC equipment. This work aims to investigate if IR Thermography which was only tested in steady-state conditions can be applied to conditions of transient vari- ation of indoor air temperature. For this purpose, measurements under lab conditions and numerical analysis with the use of finite element modelling (FEM) were performed. Specifically, measurements were carried out by using both Mock Target IR thermography and thermocouples, to investigate the precision of IR-obtained tran- sient data. The experiments were conducted in the environmental chamber under controlled conditions. Three types of heating systems (underfloor heating, radiator heating, and ventilation heating) were investigated to ensure that the method is tested under conditions of different heat-emitting devices, as well as different con- vection and radiation ratios. Validated numerical models were developed using the FEM Multiphysics approach, to extend the scope of the assessment under various conditions and to observe the difference between the mock target pole temperature and air temperature. It was concluded that the mock target IR Thermography perfor- mance was accurate for the case of transient air temperature, as well as for different rates of temperature change, with an average temperature deviation of 0.4 [%] according to the experimental measurements and 1.74 [%] based on the numerical simulations.

This document presents the main findings on the current status of EPCs in EU MS, as well as limitations and gaps in the existing EPC schemes, calculation procedures, and standards. On the basis of those findings, the European Project D^2EPC aims to set the grounds for the next-generation of dynamic EPCs and lead the transition to a systemic instrument that recognizes the whole life cycle of a building as a structure and encourages best practices in the field of energy efficiency. One of the main objectives of the project is to conclude to a specific series of proposals and measures to be used for the update of the ISO/CEN standards developed under Commission mandate M/4801. In this sense, it is expected that the next generation EPC envisaged by the D^2EPC project will provide guidance and turn EPCs registries into policy feeding mechanisms, facilitating urban planning and decision making.

European cities across the Mediterranean region face common climatic threats. Urbanised areas are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and climate extremes. Cities concentrate population and assets, and losses and damages as a result of climate change impacts such as heat waves, droughts, wildfires, landslides, coastal hazards are likely. So far, however, there is no systematic understanding how cities in the Mediterranean Europe are preparing to adapt to these impacts, nor of how they aim to increase their resilience and adaptive capacity. Understanding how cities plan to manage climatic risks will help to identify action gaps, allocate resources and provides better-informed climate policy, at local, regional national and international scale. This research gathered and analysed adaptation planning documents in a representative sample of 73 cities across 9 Mediterranean European countries (France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta) in the context of their national policies. The results and this paper shed important light on the progress of adaptation planning, by focusing on identified impacts and proposed adaptation measures. N/A

Financial supporting schemes for the energy upgrading of the building sector in Europe constitute one of the major policies of the European Union (EU). Since the beginning of the 2000s, dozens of funding programs and initiatives have been announced by the European Commission (EC). It is a fact that the majority of these policies have borne fruit, as the metrics on both energy savings in the building sector and the promotion of renewable energy in the built environment have turned the EU into a global pioneer. This paper attempts to give a brief overview of the main policy and financial tools for the energy upgrading of the built environment in Europe. Emphasis is placed on three major mechanisms, which concern different-scale projects: crowdfunding projects, public-private co-financing projects, and large-scale projects funded by financial institutions such as European Investment Bank (EIB). Reference is also made to recently implemented EU funded research programs in this field. This work aspires to constitute a reference study for future research activities in the field of financial supporting schemes for energy upgrading of buildings in Europe.

The social challenge of youth unemployment is enlarged on islands. The youth on islands face additional obstacles since they are constrained by geography, resources, economies of scale, and suffer from seasonal unemployment. The focus of this paper is to present the results of a study that was conducted in eight (8) European insular regions in the fields of renewable energy sources (RES), energy efficiency, sustainable tourism and sustainable mobility. The aim is to identify the future green market needs and the prerequisites of green jobs, as well as defining the solution that will tackle the NEETs (not in education, employment, or training) unemployment problem. Information, data and statistics were retrieved from national, European and international reports and through the use of equestionnaires to obtain the relevant stakeholders’ opinion on green growth and NEETs issues. The results of the analysis are discussed in relation with the long-term strategy on green growth and policy measures currently in place at a regional, national and European level. This study revealed that the main routes for tackling the challenge of NEETs are the formulation of the appropriate policy framework for encouraging green growth, the cultivation of public environmental awareness through suitable educational programmes and the preparation of younger generations with appropriate knowledge, training, and skills to avoid becoming NEETs in the first place.

This study focuses on lab-scale fluidized bed reactor gasification of olive mill waste and the effect of different parameters on the product gas and gasification procedure stability. Olive mill residue is a bioresource, actively produced in the Mediterranean area. This study aims to define the optimal conditions for olive mill residues gasification in the most efficient way. Another important outcome should be dealing with operational problems, such as agglomeration and tar reduction. For the purpose of this study, olive residues were gasified, testing the effect of different temperatures (700-885°C), equivalence ratios (ER ~ 0.25 – 0.35), addition of steam (air/steam gasification), and type of bed material (silica sand, olivine) on the quality of the product gas., Proceedings of the 27th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition, 27-30 May 2019, Lisbon, Portugal, pp. 902-906

Second Assessment of Local Climate Action Plan (LCAPs) in 85 Urban Audit core cities, EU-28.

Evidence from the Second Assessment of Local Climate Change Plans conducted on all Urban Audit (UA) Cities across the EU-28 was presented. The UA Cities are large- and medium-sized cities of regional representativeness and comprise more than 900 European cities in total. As part of the assessment researchers collect and analyse the cities’ local adaptation and mitigation plans. This intervention will focus on the state and content of these plans as well as the information used to develop the plans: which information was derived from national assessments, which information was produced at local level and which information gaps were encountered.

The application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to construction materials provides a useful inside to the energy embodied in their production and contributes towards educated decision-making regarding the choice of the most environmentally friendly product. This study focuses on the cradle to site LCA of adobe production. It examines different production scenarios: (i) on-site production with locally available soil and transported straw or sawdust, (ii) on-site production with transported soil/straw or sawdust, and (iii) in factory production. The results, in terms of embodied energy and carbon per kg of adobe bricks produced, confirm that the minimization of transportation needs and the utilisation of locally available resources can significantly affect the environmental footprint of an adobe production system. They also show that the use of sawdust instead of wheat straw leads to improved environmental performance of the end-product. The embodied energy and carbon of adobe production is compared to equivalent data referring to other common masonry materials highlighting the eco-friendliness of the material. 112 443 452

It is well known that from the 160 million buildings in the EU the majority of them (estimated 85%) are thermally inefficient. Therefore, it is of serious matter that existing buildings become energy renovated. However, experiences gathered during the last decade showed that this process is not straightforward. This project will focus on early phases of a building project when the building owner still hasn’t decided what to do and there is a possibility to influence the thoughts about renovation in order to plan for renovation measures that will make the building operate in a more sustainable way.The main purpose of this study is to present the main aspects of initiatives in the field of energy upgrading of buildings in Europe today. Through a comprehensive literature review, light will be shed on issues related to both national policies and the main financial instruments that are currently pressing the energy renovation of buildings. Both the obstacles and the contribution of national regulations will be discussed, towards promotion of sustainable renovation in Europe today. This study is also expected to report on research initiatives currently being undertaken in Europe on the energy upgrade buildings, as well as on related research programs.

Towards optimization of urban planning and architectural parameters for energy use minimization in Mediterranean cities

Gegenstand dieser Arbeit war die experimentelle Untersuchung einer eingeschlossenen, abgehobenen, nicht-vorgemischten Drallflamme durch Verwendung einer neuartigen Airblast-Düse. Für die zeitaufge-löste Bestimmung aller drei Geschwindigkeitskomponenten wurde eine Messkampagne unter Verwendung eines kommerziellen 3-D LDA Systems durchgeführt. Konzentrations- und Temperaturmessungen im Feld wurden zum besseren Verständnis der komplexen turbulenten chemischen Interaktion auch durchgeführt.

The significance of the building sector in terms of energy consumption is well acknowledged. Scientific studies have shown that the potential of energy savings in the building sector is quite significant. In this view the knowledge of how the building stock of Cyprus behaves in terms of energy consumption is quite valuable. This knowledge will assist policy makers to formulate targeted measures aiming the improvement of energy efficiency and will provide valuable information for setting current legal standards and benchmarks in the energy performance certificate, a requirement of the 2002/91/EC Directive. Unfortunately, the existing knowledge on this subject is quite poor. As a remedy, and in order to improve our knowledge on the subject, a research project supported by the Research Promotion Foundation under the 2008 call is in operation since December 2008. This study will present the outline, the goals and the proposed methodology of the research project “Classification of buildings in Cyprus based on their energy performance” and will exhibit the initial findings of the survey questionnaire regarding the energy behavior and other characteristics of the residential building stock of Cyprus.

Research on the barriers for building renovation in Denmark has revealed that an important obstacle is a lack of simple and holistic tools that can assist stakeholders in decision-making during the early stages of projects (pre-project phases). The purpose of this paper is to present preliminary research results and ideas for the development of a tool, which can be used as decision support for renovation projects in early stages. The research is part of the Eracobuild project ACES – “A concept for promotion of sustainable retrofitting and renovation in early stages” with participants from Denmark, Sweden and Cyprus. This paper is mainly based on a work package concerning benefits of restoration. The approach has been - after a literature review - to start by conducting a needs and stakeholder analysis with 10 interviews. Based on this initial analysis a requirement specification for the decision support tool has been formulated and an outline of a preliminary evaluation tool has been developed. The results of the needs and stakeholder analysis, the requirements specification and the outline of the evaluation tool have been presented and discussed with a group of main stakeholders at a workshop. The target group for the tool is the professional sector. Some of the main requirements are that the tool shall be a basis for dialogue among building professionals and building users and support formulation of objectives for renovation projects. It should also be usable for comparing alternative project proposals and to follow-up on a project and assess the results. The tool will cover the four main parameters: Environment, users (satisfaction), organisation (including competences), and economy (in a wide sense). Evaluations will be subjective, but based on facts and arguments. The different stakeholder’s different evaluations will be presented as part of the results.

In an era of rapid technological improvements, state-of-the-art methodologies and tools dedicated to the protection and promotion of our cultural heritage should be developed and extensively employed in the management of our built environment. At the same time, sustainability principles underline the importance of the continuous use of historic or vernacular buildings as part of the building stock of our cities. The adoption of a holistic, integrated, multi-disciplinary strategy can bridge technological innovation with the conservation and restoration of heritage buildings. The project “Portal for heritage buildings' integration into the contemporary built environment” (Urban PERIsCOPE) provides an innovative platform for the identification, classification, documentation, and renovation of heritage buildings - a tool that can be exploited by a variety of stakeholders related to the conservation and retrofit activities. Urban PERIsCOPE enables the exploitation of state-of-the-art techniques in the scientific fields of Building Information Modelling (BIM), remote sensing, terrestrial and aerial 3D modelling techniques, and non-destructive onsite testing, pursued by the leading research and academic institutions of Cyprus in these fields. The Urban PERIsCOPE platform addresses specific stakeholders to impact culturally and economically the society of Cyprus, including public authorities and policymakers (Town Planning and Housing Department, Department of Antiquities, Municipalities) and professionals (archaeologists, engineers, architects, and chartered surveyors). The implementation of Urban PERIsCOPE in practice involves the pilot application of an innovative, holistic, integrated methodology on a select number of heritage buildings in Nicosia and Limassol (including examples located in both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods), which were selected based on their location in the contemporary fabric of the city, architectural typology, use, as well as their current structural condition. The Urban PERIsCOPE platform and its associated tools bring added value and benefits to the Public Authorities and professionals in Cyprus. The proposed methodology approaches the challenges and identified issues of heritage buildings in the contemporary urban fabric from multiple points of view, including (i) the mapping and parametric management of data of heritage buildings through BIM, (ii) the documentation of architectural typology and architectonic features, (iii) the method of construction, (iv) the definition of their structural condition, and (v) the restoration and renovation requirements.