Do you know that Europe is currently failing at making nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs) the standard? Because they are considered too expensive, and there are too many uncertainties in such projects regarding the return on investment. However, creating an nZEB is compulsary for every new building you create from january 2021 onwards. So you too will need to face this challenge.

The European Horizon 2020 project AZEB (Affordable Zero Energy Buildings) has created and nearly finalized the solution for this challenge. Our support is ready-to-go including all necessary world-class techniques, tools and processes. These have been selected after scanning, analyzing and testing all available solutions in Europe, using decades of nZEB project experience and the diversity in perspective from institutions from 6 different European countries. We have integrated the best ones into a straight-forward step-by-step method. Now we are almost ready to teach you the ropes.

The AZEB project has created the AZEB common methodology for developing cost effective NZEB. Also, in february 2020, an e-learning platform will be launched to help professional clients, investors, project managers and other building professionals to apply the AZEB methodology and achieve affordable nearly Zero Energy Buildings step-by-step. Finally, AZEB trainer manuals have been created and AZEB train-the-trainer courses are being developed to facilitate educators in applying AZEB material in their own educational programs.

In the 36-month AZEB project 8 partners from Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Germany, France and The Netherlands work together till mid 2020.

The main steps of the AZEB project are:

• Collecte and Evaluate available experience and solutions
• Create a common methodology for cost reduction of nZEB’s
• Apply the methodology in demonstration projects
• Finalise the methodology including lessons learned
• Creating educational material on implementation of the methodology
• Disseminate the results

The project will pave the way for the process and organizational innovation in construction, to enable significant cost reduction and solid market acceptance of NZEB’s.

The AZEB project consists of 6 work packages (WP’s) to organize the work:

• WP1 – Set of solutions from previous experience, literature and case studies
• WP2 – A methodology for developing cost effective NZEB with RES
• WP3 – Impact demonstration in real projects
• WP4 – Material for training and guidance
• WP5 – Communication, dissemination and exploitation
• WP6 – Project management and coordination

Partners:

• DNA IN DE BOUW VERENIGING
• OBRASCON HUARTE LAIN SA
• FUNDACION TECNALIA RESEARCH & INNOVATION
• Vivienda y Suelo de Euskadi, S.A.
• WOLFGANG FEIST
• ASSOCIATION POUR LA RECHERCHE ET LE DEVELOPPEMENT DES METHODES ET PROCESSUS INDUSTRIELS
• OBERON KONZEPTBAU
• POLITECNICO DI MILANO

Start date: 1/05/2017 - End date: 30/04/2020