Group Energy Conservation

30/06/2026

Dr Constantinos Balaras was recognized by ASHRAE and awarded the Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award that honors Fellows of the Society for continuing preeminence in research work and engineering. The award was presented by ASHRAE President Bill McQuade during the 2026 Annual Conference in Austin, Texas on July 27, 2026.

23/06/2026

REMED Interreg Euro-MED Final Conference it is time to pull it all together and present an overview of the accomplishments and deliverables of the ReMED project: TOWARDS CLIMATE RESILIENT URBAN CITIES. We have a couple of more months to put the final touches. Come September, all deliverables will be accessible and open for municipalities and interested professionals to get and use. Let's improve resillience of our built environment to climate change impacts, assess where we are currently, what are the priorities and how we can improve resillience for the benefit of people as building occupants and residents.
More information - Towards Climate Resilient Mediterranean Cities https://remed.interreg-euro-med.eu a collaborative effort of 9 partners from 5 EU countries.

16/06/2026

REMED Interreg Euro-MED is getting ready for the FINAL JOINT WORKSHOP on June 23rd, from 15:45 to 17:00 CET.
Join us online - Free registration @ https://form.jotform.com/82961805184362
Get the latest insights on an innovative digital tool implementing the ReMED climate risk assessment system and decision-making model to support the analysis, selection and implementation of adaptation measures at neighbourhood and building scale.

02/06/2026

A validated model for short-term prediction of cooling energy consumption in buildings - first step to forecast control of cooling, published in Journal of Building Engineering, 127: 116361. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2026.116361
Smart control of energy supply for cooling in buildings can significantly improve energy efficiency. However, existing modelling methods are often complex and rely mainly on artificial neural networks (ANN) and other machine learning techniques, posing various difficulties for integrating them in forecast control of cooling. Moreover, accurate cooling energy models are generally more demanding to develop than heating models. To address this research gap, this study proposes a novel, simple and physically based method for creating building cooling energy models that also take into account the characteristics of the existing cooling system. The approach uses measured cooling energy consumption and meteorological data-outdoor air temperature, wind speed and solar irradiance - to derive an equivalent outdoor temperature that represents the real thermal behaviour of the building during cooling operation. Proper selection of operating and weather data is essential to minimise the influence of unrelated factors. The method is demonstrated on an office building in Poland and a university building in Cyprus. For both case studies, the developed cooling energy models were validated, achieving for outdoor temperatures above 26 °C mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) values of 13.15% for the office building and 17.87% for the university building. To further assess robustness, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) ANN models were trained using the same hourly inputs-outdoor temperature, wind speed and solar radiation. The ANN models did not significantly improve prediction accuracy, yielding higher MAPE values of 19.6–24.7% for the office building and 29.4–34.9% for the university building. The results highlight that buildings must be considered individually and show that the proposed method can provide a practical, transparent and accurate tool for estimating cooling energy performance. Future work will address occupant influence and integration into predictive control of air-conditioning systems.

28/05/2026

“Decarbonizing Hospital Buildings” presented during the 1st International Conference “HEALTH in BUILDINGS – HYGEIA 2026” organized by the ASHRAE Hellenic Chapter, Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE), Hellenic Ministry of Health, Athens Medical Association, 27-29 May, 2026 @ Kos, Greece.
Access the presentation @ https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.29104.32005
This presentation is an overview of the new ASHRAE Guide on decarbonization for hospital facility managers, capital planners, hospital architectural and engineering teams, sustainability leaders, contractors and other building stakeholders. The Guide is part of the ASHRAE series on decarbonization that specifically shows how to reduce GHG emissions in hospital buildings. Hospitals have one of the largest carbon use intensities (CUI) of all building types that is documented with relevant European and Hellenic data. The challenges for decarbonizing healthcare buildings are much more complex than those for other buildings because of their unique needs in terms of the number and complexity of systems, infection prevention needs, regulatory environment, abundance of technology to deliver healthcare services, and needs for resilience. The Guide has been developed by ASHRAE and American Society for Health Care Engineering (ASHE). More information is available @ https://www.ashrae.org/about/cebd-technical-resources
Visit the Conference HYGEIA2026 website @ https://www.ashrae.gr//hygeia2026.php

30/04/2026

29/04/2026

How smart are European buildings? Case studies in Greece, published in Science and Technology for the Built Environment, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/23744731.2026.2659353
The smart readiness indicator (SRI) is a new common European scheme for rating a building and assessing its capacity to accommodate smart-ready services. The primary goal is to secure the proper indoor environmental quality in accordance to the occupant needs, with low energy use, utilizing control strategies with building domains including HVAC, domestic hot water, lighting, envelope components, use of electricity, electric vehicle charging, monitoring and control. The paper presents an overview of the structure and outlines the SRI calculation steps and the generic technical framework. It provides a synopsis of the default catalogues that include smart-ready services for existing buildings with simple installations and new buildings with more complex installations. Furthermore, it summarizes the overall process to aggregate the calculations into a single SRI score. Following the available method and tool, several field studies have been performed in Hellenic commercial buildings. The results are elaborated to reveal the relation of the buildings’ energy performance and SRI in the existing condition and the resulting improvements following different renovation measures. The main findings reveal that the overall assessment method and tool are easy to implement. However, the user needs some expertise to interpret the building characteristics and features of its technical installations to the prescribed different levels. The initial SRI scores for the investigated case studies ranged from only 4.1% with an overall low energy performance (ranked at energy class-D), up to 42.9% with a high energy performance (ranked at energy class-B+). The assessment of various renovation scenarios for improving the building controls increased the SRI to reach a score of 24.8% (from 4.1%) up to 68.1% (from 35.6%). The associated energy savings ranged from 12% to 18%, respectively.

23/04/2026

📢 Big news for ReMED https://remed.interreg-euro-med.eu/
We’re proud to be part of a select group of projects recognised under the Interreg Euro-MED Interreg Euro-MED Programme as:
✔️ One of 122 projects that passed the first evaluation stage
✔️ Among the 56 projects approved under the call Interreg Euro-MED Programme 2nd Call for Thematic Projects
✔️ And now one of 24 projects pre-selected out of 40 for the Fast Lane “Test-to-Transfer” phase https://interreg-euro-med.eu/en/fastlane-test-to-transfer-pre-selection-results/
Being selected for the Fast Lane highlights high-performing projects with strong, transferable results and real potential to scale impact across the Mediterranean.
This milestone reflects the impact and potential of ReMED in supporting Mediterranean cities, and reinforces its contribution to advancing climate resilience through practical tools, policy innovation, and transnational cooperation.
👏 A big thank you to all partners involved in making this possible.
Excited for what comes next 🚀

Grad Crikvenica Ayuntamiento de Málaga Fundación CIEDES Comune di Genova - Genoa Municipality Environmental Innovation & Greening Gozo Italia R&D - International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment Faculty for the Built Environment - University of MaltaUniversity of Malta Group Energy Conservation ΔΗΜΟΣ ΦΥΛΗΣ Municipality of Fyli Interreg Euro-MED Programme

The Fast lane approach is born with the purpose of testing a model of a complete project cycle (study-test-transfer) in which the transition from one phase to the next is based on sound management and quality of results, the project performance being a priority for the Programme.

14/04/2026

From Physics to Machine Learning in Forecasting Thermal Load of a District-Heated Residential Building: Assessment of Different Methods And Influence of Input Data, published in Energy & Buildings, 361: 117435, is now available as Open Access
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2026.117435
Accurate thermal load forecasting is crucial for optimizing the operation of heating systems, particularly under predictive control strategies. The choice of the forecasting method is strongly influenced by data availability and compatibility with control logic. However, there is still a lack in scientific literature on the detailed evaluation of forecast methods for the operation of buildings in weather-based control mode and in forecast control mode of building heating system. This study presents a structured multi-method approach to model space heating demand of a residential building in Poland, which has been monitored since 2018 and is being operated in forecasting mode since 2021 through the forHEAT system developed by the Lublin University of Technology. The analysis is articulated in three methods. Method 1 uses a calibrated EnergyPlus model to simulate building behavior under both weather-based (2018–2021) and forecasting-based control (2021–2024), offering insights into seasonal load patterns and about the limitations of static modeling under dynamic control. Method 2 develops 26 nonlinear autoregressive neural networks with exogenous inputs (NARX), exploring combinations of seasonal subsets, training durations, and control paradigms. Results show that recent, seasonally aligned training data enable the best performance (R2 = 0.937, cvRMSE = 9.96%), while shorter or misaligned datasets lead to higher error and reduced generalization. Method 3 introduces a simplified empirical model based on equivalent outdoor temperature (Teq) for real-time implementation. While Teq maintains low bias (NMBE within ± 0.6%), it suffers from higher variability (cvRMSE up to 27%) and limited adaptability. Overall, NARX networks consistently outperform both EnergyPlus and Teq across metrics, particularly in scenarios with transitional or mismatched regimes, making them the most robust tool for accurate heat load forecasting. Future developments can expand the model to other building typologies and climatic locations.

08/04/2026

A new target for Greenhouse Gas emissions in EU reduced by 90% compared to 1990 levels by 2040 !

Today, the new EU's legally binding 2040 climate target enters into force: a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels. 🌍

Regulation (EU) 2026/667, adopted by the European Parliament and the Council on 11 March 2026, sets a legally binding intermediate climate target for 2040, taking into account the scientific advice by the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change: a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels.

This 2040 target is a critical stepping stone on the EU's path to climate neutrality by 2050 — and a clear signal that Europe's commitment to the green transition remains firm.

The EEA tracks Europe's progress towards these climate goals, providing the independent data and analysis that underpin evidence-based policy. 📊
https://www.eea.europa.eu/en/analysis/maps-and-charts/greenhouse-gases-viewer-data-viewers