Addressing Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Challenges in the EU's Built Environment: A Data-Driven Approach

The EU is increasingly acknowledging the urgent need to tackle energy efficiency and sustainability challenges in the built environment. With buildings accounting for 40% of the EU's energy consumption and 36% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, new regulations have emerged to meet the targets set by the European Green Deal and the new European Bauhaus. To tackle these issues effectively, there is a growing need for advanced technologies that enable the optimisation of buildings’ operations and energy performance, by utilising insights deriving from building-energy data and AI-enabled analytics. Recognising this need, our methodology provides a comprehensive solution for data-driven buildings’ energy performance optimisation through the introduction of innovative energy services bundles contributing to a more sustainable and energy-efficient built environment. The approach focuses on three core aspects: (i) developing a cloud-based platform enabling seamless and interoperable collection and processing of data towards effectively powering various innovative energy (and non-energy) services for the whole building sector value chain (building managers, energy retailers, etc.), (ii) leverage advanced AI analytics to ingest the required intelligence and insights in building energy performance optimisation applications/services, enabling the participation of buildings in energy markets in the frame of Demand Response programmes, (iii) create a data sharing-driven energy services ecosystem, through a secure, privacy preserving data trading/sharing marketplace; enabling data exchanges among stakeholders, fostering collaboration and innovation in building-energy services.