FBK - REET Energy Vision and the Positive Energy Building

The actual scenarios on world energy demands open a series of questions related to the more affordable energy generation systems, the reliable technologies, the better regulatory framework between micro and macro multigeneration of energy, both under a social, economical, and environmental point of view. Energy will continue to be a priority discussion in the upcoming years. The main concern is the intrinsic connection between available energy and socio - economical wellness. A first element is related to the fossil fuel availability. Even in more optimistic scenarios, there will be sufficient reserves for the next 40 to 60 or more years. A second element is related to the “oil peak”. When the fuels production potential will be lower than the demand on the international markets, energy prices will increase dramatically. On the other way, society as a whole requires energy, at stable prices, to produce goods and wellness. In such a scenario, what are the perspectives on energy resources and the possible technological solutions? Can sun, wind, biomass, water, earth be an answer? Are there some enabling factor and opportunities? A new energy society is based on legal framework, business models, and technologies. The debate at world scale on the energy sources has driven a strong stimulus to the development of regulatory frameworks and policies, at national and international level. The climate change scenario and the carbon footprint is pushing and strengthen the actions on the energy sector itself stimulating the use of renewable energy sources. The next energy society is starting now and its developments are running on the research sector and are trying to be implemented at societal level. It’s an objective pushed from both directions top-down, like general indicators to be matched in the near future defined by a series of legal frameworks and policies, but at the same time bottom-up, as a growing consciousness and a self-organization approach from single citizens, single communities and local districts. A lot of initiatives, worldwide diffused, are trying to step forward in the more effective, efficient and fast way the new elements of the next energy society: the Prosumers. The prosumer is a node of the society, in its different dimensions and characteristics, able to interlink locally the production and use of energy, trying to match at best one with the other, and able to interlink with the upper and lower energy societal levels. It may be either a single citizen or a community, a big city or a industrial district [1]. The next energy society requires considerable infrastructure modifications in relationship with the total energy consumption in the different sectors. In the EU, the total energy consumption is divided into three main sectors: transport, industry and commerce plus households (see Fig. 1 and 2). The latter is the most consuming sector, as a whole, and where major savings can be applied through the combination of energy efficiency actions and retrofittable technologies [2]. Great efforts have been planned by European Commission supporting the ICT sector for energy efficient and retrofittable systems. Anyway, there is a lack of technologies related to energy generation and storage from renewable sources at distributed level (m-CHP systems), not only in terms of marketable stand-alone systems, but furthermore under the aspect of adaptable systems able to be retrofitted in working conditions and in possible energy generated (thermal for heating and cooling and electrical). From another point of view the energy consumption in buildings is heterogeneous between different countries. Buildings consume about 40% of total energy, of which 70% both in USA and in Europe is thermal energy (although some estimates indicate Europe spends 80%). Buildings consume 70% of all electricity and 50% of all natural gas.