News and Events

“SunHorizon advanced control system and proactive maintenance tool” has been published on the CLIMA 2022 website.

Currently in the European Union, buildings represent a large percentage of the energy consumption. Increasing the introduction of renewable energy sources is becoming necessary to achieve an effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. SunHorizon project demonstrates the potential of combining solar appliances and heat pumps in buildings for meeting heating and cooling demands in Europe.

The energy systems are managed by an advanced Python-based control system. Using the forecast of the demand and occupancy of the building, a predictive controller calculates the optimal exploitation of resources and storage use. This is useful to maximize the renewable energy use and cost performance. Furthermore, the control system operates in combination with a proactive maintenance tool that includes fault detection and maintenance surveillance capabilities. This tool is based on the Reliability-Centred Maintenance strategy, which focuses on understanding the equipment failure modes, applying all the different possible maintenance strategies and considering consequences and cost of failures. To achieve this goal, several key performance indicators (KPIs) are defined, calculated in real-time operation and compared with simulation data to detect faults. When any failure is obtained, the system triggers specific alarms via web and email, hence notifying house operators or final users. KPIs are also evaluated to calculate their remaining useful life and therefore predict future faults.

The solution above is applied in a building in Riga, Latvia and the methodology beneath these tools is explained in this paper. The use of prediction for control and maintenance will allow the system to avoid wasting energy, increase self-consumption as well as to save costs on the energy bills.

The REHVA World Congress CLIMA is the leading international scientific congress in the field of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).

From now to 2030 the world of HVAC will change radically. Fuelled by irreversible influences, the current demands on climate installations will change completely. To meet global climate goals and pursue the EU Green Deal, the regulatory environment on building performance, decarbonisation and the energy transition will change in 2022 within the ‘EU Fit for 55 package’, while the Renovation wave strategy aims at the deep energy renovation of up to 35 million buildings by 2030.

CLIMA 2022 has been focused on 5 themes related to this massive transformation that is on the horizon: Energy, Circularity, Digitalization, Health & Comfort and Learning & Education.

The publication is available here.

The Universitatea Tehnica of Cluj-Napoca (TUCN) is organising the “EnTReC: Energy Days 2022”: 3 days dedicated to showcase the latest technologies in renewable sources. The event will be from the 25th to the 27th of May 2022 and it will be mostly onsite with some presentation that will be in a hybrid form (onsite + online).

Between these presentations the TUCN plan also to show the SUNHORIZON project and the pilot site that will be implemented at the Cluj-Napoca University.

The three days are divided as following:

• Day 1: Advanced Renewable Energy technology. It is dedicated to show building integrated RES solutions cased in the context of ongoing EnTReC projects meant to increase the energy efficiency of TUCN campus buildings
• Day 2: Launch of the project Doitsmarter
• Day 3: Actions to support SMEs in implementation of energy efficiency projects. Representatives from central and local government, professional association, representatives from SMEs and academia will discuss about mechanisms, tools and actions which can support SMEs towards the implementation of energy efficiency projects.

More information are available here.

Mostra Convegno Expocomfort 2022 offers a unique opportunity for companies in the HVAC + R, renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors to exchange their knowledge, present their products and reveal the latest innovations in the sector.

The Convention was initially meant to take place in March and was later rescheduled to June 28-July 1.

Participating in MCE means launching your own products and services on a global scale, building strategic relationships and alliances with those who design, install and build systems and systems for the living comfort of intelligent buildings in the commercial, industrial and residential sectors.

We will be present at MCE 2022 with a booth in the centre of the Heat Pump Hall (No.S24).

More information are available here.

On the 23rd and 24th of March 2022, SunHorizon consortium met in a hybrid way, both in Sant Cugat Municipality and online, for the M42 General Assembly, kindly hosted by our partner Ajuntament de Sant Cugat in Spain.

On this occasion, the partners had the opportunity to present what has been implemented over the previous years of the project and what are the next steps to be taken. In particular, the Assembly has been divided as follows. The first day was dedicated to each of the Work Packages (WPs), with the exception of WP6, which presented the next day with each demo site. The latter provided an update on the status of the project and subsequent phases, including changes, risks and uncertainties (if any).

On the first day, each WP representative provided an update on the status of the WP and deliverables, as well as the next steps. In particular, more emphasis was placed on the SunHorizon control platform to be integrated into the demos, in the feasibility studies and business models, and on the presentation and interaction of simulation tools. For the latter topic, a workshop was organised for the demo leader on site and online. The results of the first day are encouraging. Indeed, three new deliverables were presented from September, and the management structure of the demonstration sites has been updated. The first day ended with a guided tour of the beautiful monastery of Sant Cugat del Valles.

The second day was dedicated to WP6 and demonstration sites. As demonstration sites were affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, particular attention was paid to them and their upcoming technical activities. The meeting ended with a visit to the demonstration site of Sant Cugat in Mirasol.

Below you can find some photos of the General Assembly M42.

The REHVA World Congress CLIMA is the leading international scientific congress in the field of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC).

From now to 2030 the world of HVAC will change radically. Fuelled by irreversible influences, the current demands on climate installations will change completely. To meet global climate goals and pursue the EU Green Deal, the regulatory environment on building performance, decarbonisation and the energy transition will change in 2022 within the ‘EU Fit for 55 package’, while the Renovation wave strategy aims at the deep energy renovation of up to 35 million buildings by 2030.

CLIMA 2022 will focus on 5 themes related to this massive transformation that is on the horizon: Energy, Circularity, Digitalization, Health & Comfort and Learning & Education. CLIMA 2022 will have its EYE ON 2030.

SunHorizon will participate at the CLIMA 2022 edition with a poster and an online presentation of its advanced control system and proactive maintenance tool.

We will held an oral presentation on CLIMA 2022 session MD01, on the 23rd of May 2022 from 4:15 to 5:45 pm.

Register and program here.

SunHorizon will participate in the online seminar “Deep Retrofit Community of Practice: Highly ambitious regions and projects across Europe”, organised by SuperHomes2030, Fedarene and EHPA.

As part of the SuperHomes2030 project, a ‘one stop shop’ deep retrofit service for domestic homes in Ireland, that aims to dramatically scale this service over 3 years, increasing completed retrofits from 100 houses in 2019 (€6M) to 500 houses in 2023 (€36M).

This online seminar brings together Ambitious Regions and already running Renovation and One Stop Shop EU Funded Projects, to offer a complete outlook for the sector: from up-skilling, policy, implementation, examples and future development.

Moreover, it looks at replicating and expanding upon the work of diverse actors, while driving the innovation and implementation of the deep retrofit sector and the associated value chain of stakeholders.

The event will be held online on the 2nd of June 2022, from 10:00 am CET.

Take a look at the agenda here.

You can register to the online event here.

Presentation of the article “Parametric simulation of a solar coupled heat pump system” at the HPC2021

On the 11st of April 2022, the SunHorizon project partecipated at the 9th Heat Pump Powered Conference at the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, Spain. The Conference is concerned with scientific and technological innovations relating to the efficient and economic use of heat, derived from all its sources, for the production of cooling, heating and mechanical power either independently or co-generatively.  

According to the aim of the conference, the partners CNR ITAE, the University of Granoble Alpes, CARTIF, RINA Consulting and the West Scotland Science Park in Galsgow have presented the article “Parametric simulation of a solar coupled heat pump system”.

Further information will follow shortly.

Meanwhile, you can see some photos of the presentation below.

Report from our 2nd review meeting with the European Commission.

Month 36 is critical in most H2020 projects; it’s usually the month by which things start to go “live”, solutions that took years to develop reach the first customers (or end-users, or demo sites, as we usually call them) and the Consortium have to face many unforeseen events. SunHorizon hasn’t been any different.

We started with great promises: creating 4 technology packages with 6 different technological components and commissioning them in 8 demo sites in 4 different EU countries, by September 2021.
Despite COVID-19 and consequent suppliers’ bankruptcy, raw material scarcity, certification requirements, and overloads of the logistic chain, we have managed to ship all the technologies to 3 of our 8 demo sites by September 2021. This is one of our Consortium’s greatest achievements.

Unfortunately, the work at the sites just starts from this point: little parts to be replaced, sensors which do not fit the requirements, missing devices, unstable internet connections. This is complete fieldwork, which our Consortium partners have dealt with incredibly. RTU (Riga Sunisi and Riga Imanta residential houses), VEOLIA (Sant Cugat “Mirasol Civic Centre”), EMVS (Madrid “Tres Peces 9”) will be able to commission their site in January next year!

For the others, just a few more months of hard work and site work…keep updated to know more!