The ongoing energy crisis, which started in summer 2021 due to low natural gas supply and which further deteriorated with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has highlighted the urgent need for a more independent European energy policy .

Santa Casa da Misericordia de Serpa is a well-established Portuguese social institution that runs hospitals, nursing homes and housing projects for elderly.

Local governments in Europe are notoriously risk averse, city council officials and industry leaders won’t hesitate to tell you.

Households and small businesses using independent power systems, or microgrids, still find it hard to cope without their national electricity grids.

Over the last few decades the energy landscape has been changing drastically in Europe. An increasing amount of electricity is now generated from renewable sources, such as solar and wind energy.

The 43-story Strata tower in London was one of the first buildings in the world to incorporate wind turbines into its structure. It has three small turbines – each with a rated capacity of 19 kilowatt hours – built into its roof.

In the wake of the Brussels bombings, the French blogger Francis Pisani addressed the quandaries of modern, connected European cities facing terrorist threats .

The European construction industry and home-builder citizens are increasingly aware of sustainable choices. Some solutions can be more expensive than others, although sometimes this only concerns the construction phase.

All too often, conversations on renewable energy meander toward the same end: green technology is a nice thing, though it has to become economically viable before widespread adoption becomes the norm. ...

Traditionally our electricity grids were designed to move power from large nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to consumers, but renewable energy will see changes to allow smaller power generation from wind and solar to be hooked up to the grid.

Cooling and heating public buildings remains an expensive and a mostly unresolved issue in Europe. According to the not-for-profit think-tank Buildings Performance Institute Europe , Spain has about 11.

In Europe, households are responsible for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions and 42% of energy. Cement production alone contributes to 5% of manmade CO 2 emissions .

There is nothing like the real world to reveal a project’s true worth. This is why a project called BRICKER will test its mettle out by retrofitting public buildings situated in three different countries in three different climatic zones .

Transforming districts into near-zero energy consumption urban areas could be a reality in the next few decades.

The quest towards low energy consumption in city districts requires many changes not only at building level, but also at district level.

Energy consumption in the non-residential sector, such as public and industrial buildings, is typically about 40% higher than in the residential sector.

There is much need to develop energy efficient solutions for residential buildings in Europe. The EU-funded project, MeeFS , due to be completed by the end of 2015, is developing an innovative multifunctional and energy efficient façade system to retrofit residential buildings.

CARTIF III is a new building that forms part of an applied research institute, called the CARTIF Technology Centre, based in Valladolid, Spain. This building is singular.

Innovative solutions are required to improve the energy efficiency of the existing residential building stock in Europe. But combining such innovation with better management and new business models creates unique retrofitting opportunities .

Tackling energy loss from buildings is one of the key objectives to reach greater sustainability, when it comes to energy consumption.