The AmBIENCe project’s aim is to extend the concept of Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) for the purpose of managing buildings in an active and flexible way. EPC constitutes an agreement between a building and a specialized company that provides energy efficient equipment and solutions with funds that are directly linked to the energy savings obtained.

AmBIENCe will propose new concepts and business models that guarantee greater efficiency as well as the ability to provide these services in a greater range of buildings (and groups of buildings). To that end, traditional energy efficiency measures will be combined with additional savings through the active control of devices, which makes it possible to take advantage of the inherent flexibility of buildings while also establishing criteria for comfort and safety. This will allow the demand to be managed in a flexible way and favor the integration of renewable and intermittent energy generation systems. This approach to managing demand also incorporates a system of variable energy pricing, which further reduces costs associated with the electricity bill.

This type of building goes beyond the concept of passive buildings, and it requires the use of real-time data and intelligence systems that come from advances made in technological fields such as information and communication technologies, the Internet of things, sensors, and automatic control systems. This approach allows the consumer to minimize losses or costs, maximize the use of the renewable energy generated in the facilities themselves, and offer services to the network and companies in the market. At the same time, it will help achieve the European Commission's climate objectives for reducing carbon emissions.

These new technologies and new business concepts will be validated in two pilot tests, one in Portugal and the other in Belgium. Ceit and Tekniker will participate in the validation in Portugal, and their contribution to AmBIENCe will be to analyze the opportunities and barriers to applying this type of solutions in Spain, study the replicability of the systems developed in other buildings or groups of buildings, and develop predictive tools for renewable energy generation and demand, with an eye on active demand management.

The AmBIENCe project is financed by the European Commission and has a duration of 30 months (http://ambience-project.eu/). The consortium consists of Basque technology centers Ceit and Tekniker, and six other technology centers: VITO NV, BPIE, EDP CNET, ENEA, Energinvest and INESC TEC.

On February 4 and 5, Ceit and Tecniker hosted the project’s first general assembly meeting.