Objectives

IREEN – ICT for Energy Efficient Neighbourhoods

IREEN is a strategy project which examines the ways that ICT for energy efficient and performance can be extended beyond individual homes and buildings to the wider context of neighbourhoods and communities.

IREEN is funded under the EC’s 7th Framework Programme (http://cordis NULL.europa NULL.eu/fp7/home_en NULL.html) as a Coordination and Support Action.  Grant Agreement Number 285627.  The project commenced 1st September 2011 for 24 months (August 31st 2013).  The project budget is a total of 1,464.5K Euros.

The key aim is to extend the notion of energy positive buildings and by extension, districts and neighbourhoods.  “Energy positive” are buildings / areas being those that have the capacity to generate more energy than they use.  This can be achieved in three ways:

  • Low energy consumption – less than the energy than they have produced over a given time
  • Facilitating eco-responsible behaviours
  • Consuming low energy over their “life cycle” requiring less energy for their construction and less for the use by users/occupants.

Taking the context of current industry social and economic trends and challenges currently facing Europe, the project will engage with a wide range of stakeholders including those from technology, energy, construction, local authorities, building managers and owners.

IREEN aims to engage European and other international experts and stakeholders in discussions and workshops to gather their input in to a strategy and the final output from the project a roadmap.  The expertise will be drawn from the energy sector (both providers and distributors); the technology industry including appliance manufacturers, infrastructure and software technologists; the construction sector; stakeholders from the demand side including local and regional authorities.  IREEN will also connect to smart cities partnerships across Europe.

A project advisory group drawn from a wide variety of disciplines working across Europe will provide additional expertise.

The four key objectives of the project are:

  1. Building of a knowledge community adding value to existing ones (REEB (https://connect NULL.innovateuk NULL.org/web/kinpuan/blogs/-/blogs/491560/maximized), ICT4E2B Forum (http://www NULL.ict4e2b NULL.eu/), dedicated ETPs, Eurocities (http://www NULL.eurocities NULL.eu/main NULL.php), Energy Cities etc.) for ICT-enabled energy-positive extensive areas.
  2. A community including experts to help identifying and updating barriers and challenges towards ICT solutions for energy efficient extensive areas, including standards and regulations, resulting in the production of new knowledge and case studies, to be spread among the community stakeholders.
  3. The review and analysis of strategic innovation agendas as developed in previous or ongoing EC coordination actions (REEB, (https://connect NULL.innovateuk NULL.org/web/kinpuan/blogs/-/blogs/491560/maximized) Smart Grids, REViSITE (http://www NULL.revisite NULL.eu/), etc.), and relevant EU initiatives such as the SET Plan Industrial and “Smart Cities” initiatives to identify overlapping areas with energy efficient extensive areas.
  4. Development of an “Innovation roadmap” (supporting the future establishment of European-scale actions from RTD to experimentations up to actual procurement and public private partnerships establishments for further business-oriented technology deployment).