News and Events

SunHorizon’s consortium meets the European Commission for the first review meeting of the project

On Thursday 18 June 2020, SunHorizon partners virtually met the Project Officer from INEA for the first Review Meeting to discuss the results of the project, since its launch in October 2018. 

During the first period, the activities within SunHorizon project have been mainly focused on the following points: i) Baseline evaluation of the eight demos including constraints and needs towards the integration of SunHorizon system ii) Preliminary conceptual design of the Technology Packages for the eight demos and preliminary evaluation of their performances via a proper set of KPIs iii) Definition of SunHorizon integrated tool for monitoring and control iv) Transversal activities on business models and macro-market analysis. 

Demo sites: Energy audit has been performed to evaluate the baseline conditions of the eight demos involved. Several on-site visits to the buildings were performed by the partners to understand the best integration of SunHorizon system within the existing H&C system

Enabling technologies: All the technology providers (BoostHeat, Fahrenheit, DualSun, TVP, RatioTherm, BDR) work hard on enhancing their existing products with the aim to increase the performances and reducing operating costs. The technologies are now ready to be tested at laboratory level

Technology Packages integration: Preliminary conceptual design of the TPs relying on dynamic TRNSYS simulation of the new heating system models were defined. Firstly, dynamic simulations were carried out in reference to the building envelope models that provide H&C energy requirements under weather profiles, and usage profiles. Such baseline energy demand configuration was used to develop and size the new H/C/DHW system and to evaluate the energy consumption. From the simulation results, SunHorizon TPs will be able to reduce up to 70% the primary energy savings and up to 0% the GHG emissions. 

Monitoring and control: Transversal activities on the development of the cloud monitoring platform and the control strategies to be applied in the demos have been performed. Moreover, a preliminary version of the SunHorizon app for the Thermal comfort evaluation is now ready for receiving feedback from the end-users. The monitoring and control tool will be ready in one year to be deployed in all the eight demo sites.

What’s next?

The next period of the project will be key to the demonstration phase. In fact, the different enabling technologies and their integration in the Technology Packages will be tested at laboratory before the installation in the eight demo sites, which will include also the deployment of the control tool. 

We are really happy that the project is running smoothly and we want to thank all the people involved in it. We look forward to the future of the SunHorizon project and we cannot wait to meet our partners again!

Check out the SunHorizon 3rd Newsletter published in June 2020.

Newsletter available here.

Article written by David Cheze (CEA)

The SunHorizon activities carried out in T2.4 achieved preliminary conceptual design of the Technology Packages relying on dynamic TRNSYS simulation of the new heating system models, in small and large-scale, residential and tertiary, renovated or non-renovated envelopes buildings.

Especially, the table below is showing how the SunHorizon industrial partners sketched the combination of their solar panels, tanks, heat pump and controller technologies as TP1, TP2, TP3, TP4 to be deployed later on during “WP6 Demonstration” in the 8 demo sites across Europe (Germany, Spain, Belgium and Latvia). 

The overall 18 partners involved in the 8 demo case groups managed to work together and achieved agreement on preliminary hydraulic design and component sizing of the 4 new TPs integrated in demo site.

In parallel, the simulation partners developed the models for demo cases’ building, users’ consumption profiles, weather conditions thanks to inputs from “T2.1 Collection of demo site information” and “T6.1 Analysis of collected demo cases data for establishing demo case energy baseline”. These boundary conditions have been connected to the newly developed final assembly of the TPs’ models, including not only hydraulics but also the control of the new systems.

Thanks to the parametric simulation study performed on the components’ sizes, each group made decision about the preliminary concepts of TP integrated in the demo site currently recommended. The demo cases primary energy savings ranges from 24% in Verviers SwimmingPool to 76% in Madrid residential 9-apartments building and OPEX cost savings from 20.6% in San Lorenço residential single family house to 84.6% in Madrid again, the 20% target aimed for both criteria is achieved for the 8 demo cases.

Looking at the baseline of the 8 demo cases shows that the performance level in energy or economic saving is largely influenced by the reference building and heating system: some demo cases shows already energy efficiency performance level for the envelope or the heating system or both while others shows poor ones. In addition, looking at systems involving photovoltaic panels, the results emphasized the influence of considering different system boundaries when including the specific electricity consumption of the whole building or only the electricity consumed by the DHW/heating/cooling system.

A presentation of the results is planned in September 2020 at the Eurosun conference in Athens.

On the 27th of February 2020, SunHorizon project participated in Thermoss last workshop about “Advanced technologies for heating and cooling at building and district level”, and had the opportunity to be presented by our partner Stefano Barberis (from RINA Consulting S.p.A.).

We were happy for this opportunity, and sharing our project technologies and goals with the participants.

Some pictures of the event below: