Great need for research on buildings

In line with the climate targets, buildings must be climate-neutral across the entire life cycle of construction, operation and dismantling by 2045. As around 85 per cent of the primary energy consumption of the entire building sector is required for the provision of space heating and domestic hot water, the demand for heating in particular must be reduced overall and completely converted to a renewable supply. Efficiency measures, sector coupling and improved integration of renewable energies into the energy management systems of buildings must therefore be tackled in parallel. Grid-friendly operation and the interaction between buildings, renewable heating and cooling supply, heating and cooling grids, thermal storage systems and neighbourhoods are of central importance here.

Eligible research content on buildings

The aim is to research concepts for minimising the grey energy required for new construction and modernisation, for example by recording the materials and making them digitally available for the operating and dismantling phases.

When developing construction and insulation materials, the production, processing, assembly and recycling are also taken into account.

Preference is given to solutions that combine low use of grey energy, low grey emissions and efficient production and installation with durability and good dismantling and reusability. Factors such as material availability, manufacturing costs and the utilisation of local resources and environmental compatibility must be taken into account.

Due to climate change, the temperature control of buildings in summer through thermal insulation measures and cooling is also playing an increasingly important role in Germany. Here, active and passive measures must be analysed in a location-specific manner and in combination (if necessary with cold storage and cooling networks); aspects such as daylight control or climate adaptation measures (such as greening buildings) are also important components.

Other relevant energy research topics on buildings

In the field of technical building equipment, cost-effective, highly efficient and climate-neutral systems with manufacturer-independent, standardised connections must be developed. Standardised digital interfaces enable simple installation and maintenance and ensure resilience and long-term availability. Both for new developments and when using commercial components, the aim is to achieve optimum system integration of all technologies used and to increase the overall efficiency of the building system.

Innovative concepts for operational management through dynamic operational control, predictive control and maintenance as well as the coupling of measurement and simulation are to be further developed. These will be supplemented by scientific and economic monitoring, including the use of measurement data for operational optimisation. When designing the systems, storage and load shifting must be implemented on various time scales (from daily to seasonal) to optimise the use of renewable electricity and all economically available heat sources such as environmental heat, geothermal energy, solar thermal energy and unavoidable waste heat. Energy management systems at building level form an important local level for grid-supportive and grid-reactive electricity utilisation by coordinating local production and consumption (electricity, heat, electromobility).

The transfer of results is supported by also considering socio-economic issues such as the distribution of costs for necessary modernisation measures, innovative land use concepts or options for adapting to demographic change. The perspective of future users, operators and designers of the new technologies must be taken into account as early as the technology development stage. Demonstration projects should also enable all affected stakeholders (e.g. owners, tenants, property developers, the housing industry, housing administrations, tradespeople, planners, local authorities and municipal utilities) to gain experience with the new technologies.

Funded projects should utilise local energy sources efficiently and in a way that benefits the system and at the same time be designed in such a way that the basic concepts are easily transferable to different environmental conditions. They should accelerate the implementation of research results and identify possible obstacles. As part of the reduction of barriers, the impact of legal framework conditions and economic concepts or business models as well as innovative methods to support planning and investment decisions will also be analysed. The focus here is on the transformation of existing buildings to preserve them as they are.