International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) - Concepts and Options for Determining Energy and Water Savings. Volume I defines terminology and suggests good practices for documenting the effectiveness of energy or water efficiency projects that are implemented in buildings and industrial facilities.

These terms and practices help managers to prepare M&V Plans, which specify how savings will be measured for each project.

Up to now, solar air collectors were not considered in CEN standards dealing with solar energy and more specifically with solar collectors (EN 12975 parts 1 and 2).

Thanks to the Cost Effective project, this problem has been solved out and solar air collectors are now included in the scope of the revised serie of standards EN 12975. These draft versions contain requirements on durability, reliability and safety for solar air collectors (EN 12975-1) as well as test methods for validating these requirements and measuring the thermal performance of collector (EN 12975-2).

The EU Cost Effective project is splitted into 7 Work Packages (WP). Each WP delivers a set of confidential (restricted to project partners) and public reports which serve dissemination activities.

11 public reports are now available and can be downloaded from the Publication section, in the Info material index. Other are expected within the next coming months.

This workshop, which will take place in Bressanone - Italy, on 05 December 2011, is combined with the 2011 ENERGY FORUM on Solar Building Skins (06-07 December 2011, Bressanone, Italy).

The main objective of the conference is to contribute to a multidisciplinary, integrated planning approach among architects, engineers, scientists, energy managers and manufacturers, with the aim to reduce energy consumption while improving the comfort and health of the building's occupants. Emphasis will be placed on the latest developments and innovations in integrated components for the building industry, in particular with regard to the use of renewable energy and multifunctional building elements.

Registration to both ENERGY FORUM and Cost Effective Workshop can be done at:

http://www.energy-forum.com/registration.html

The Energy-efficient Buildings (EeB) Public Private Partnership (PPP) is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the private sector to promote research on new methods and technologies to reduce the energy footprint and CO2 emissions related to new and renovated buildings across Europe.

Over the past decade, the photovoltaic (PV) market has experienced unprecedented growth. In particular in the last year, the photovoltaic market has reached a cumulative installed capacity of roughly 40 GW world-wide, with an annual added capacity of 16.6 GW. The photovoltaic power is well on the way to becoming a fully competitive part of the electricity system in the European Union (EU) and an increasingly important part of the energy mix around the Globe. But much of the progress in recent years has been very heterogeneous, varying from country to country, due to several factors, the most important being different national regulations and incentive schemes as well as varying availability of financing facilities.

The 6th General Assembly of the EU PV Platform will be held on 30 June 2011 in Brussels, Belgium. Experts from the PV sector will set out the sector's vision for 2020, 2050 and beyond, including an analysis of PV's market share by that date and of the R&D necessary to keep costs on a steep downward track.

The theme of the conference is "Benefits of Photovoltaics for Europe's Energy & Economy", and it will look at the important role Photovoltaics (PV) can play in building an environmentally sustainable energy system for Europe as well as at the great economic opportunities associated with large-scale deployment of this technology.

Five new multifunctional façade components based on newly patented ideas are being developed within the frame of the Cost Effective project. During the BAU trade fair in Munich on January 2011 a first prototype of thermal solar multifonctional facade components has been presented.

Between 11 and 15 April 2011 hundreds of events organised in all parts of Europe will show, promote, discuss and celebrate energy efficiency and renewable energy. As part of this Sustainable Energy week, the Energy Efficient Building Association is organizing a workshop on Energy Efficient Buildings PPP: long term roadmap, synergies and potential in addressing societal challenges that will take place in Brussels on April 13th 2011.

Dominique Caccavelli is invited as speaker to present the Cost Effective project.

A short presentation of the Cost Effective project has been published on March 2011 in the Parliamant Magazine: Regional Review, Issue 20. This publication was a good opportunity to present project's objectives and preliminary results to policy makers - 20,000 of which use the Regional Review in all 27 EU countries as well as the Committee of the Regions who receive 900 copies, the Members of the European Parliament and their policy staff and all 27 Directorate Generals of the European Commission.

The scope of this document is to present the list of research priorities for the definition of a long term strategy and a Multi- Annual Roadmap, as identified by industry in the framework of the European "Energy-efficient Buildings Association " (E2BA) and beyond, through its multiplier effect within the broader stakeholder community.

This Roadmap has been driven by industry in the framework of an Ad-hoc Industrial Advisory Group. The private sector was represented by E2BA, as industrial interlocutor of the European Commission in the EeB PPP.

 This volume describes the five new multifunctional façade components based on newly patented ideas that are under development The new components are being optimized for the high-rise building categories with the highest expected impact on European CO2-emissions.

The study, carried out by the JRC's Institute for Energy (IE), summarises and evaluates the results of a survey of more than 300 companies worldwide. It looks at the photovoltaic market and industry worldwide with special attention to the EU, India, Japan, China, Taiwan and the United States, providing a final outlook on the topic. It also provides an overview of current activities in research, manufacturing and market implementation in this sector. However, data from 2009 may have a higher uncertainty than usual, mostly due to the difficult market situation and a decreased willingness of companies to report confidential data.

The Eracobuild ERA-NET has issued its first Newsletter recently.

In addition to a general overview of Eracobuild activities by Luc Bourdeau, Coordinator, and an interview with the Chairman of the Steering Committte Theo Zillner from BMVIT, Austria, it contains information on the 2 first joint calls launched by Eracobuild in the framework of two trans-national programmes already agreed by Eracobuild: "Value Driven Processes" and "Sustainable Renovation". News from the Dutch National Liaison Point of E2B are also included in this issue.

The European Commission, the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, the Government of Principality of Asturias, the NANOfutures association and PRODINTEC have announced the Official Launching of the European Initiative "NANOfutures": European Technology Integration and Innovation Platform (ETIP) in Nanotechnology. This event will be held in Gijón (Asturias) on the 15-16th June 2010

All buildings built after 31 December 2020 must have high energy-saving standards and be powered to a large extent by renewable energy. Public authorities will lead the way two years earlier and part of the funding for these changes will come from the EU. These are among the key points of a deal reached on Tuesday 17 November 2009 between Parliament and Council negotiators.

The European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP) and the Energy Efficient Buildings European Initiative (E2B EI) are jointly organising their annual conference that will take place in Brussels on 24 & 25 November 2009.

This first newsletter covers the progress made during the first six-month period of the Cost Effective project.

You can download this Newsletter from the Publication directory.

The Solar Thermal sector has led the process towards the creation of an European Renewable Heating and Cooling Technology Platform (RHC-ETP)

The EU COST EFFECTIVE project was launched on October 1st 2008.The Kick-off meeting took place on 7-8-9 October 2008 in Freiburg, Germany, and was hosted by Fraunhofer ISE, co-ordinator of this project. More than 50 participants from all over Europe attended this event, where main technical and managerial issues were discussed.

With an unmistakable slogan "The future of Building" the leading trade fair for the European building industry, BAU 2009, has once again opened its doors in Munich from January 12th - 19th in the New Munich Trade Fair Centre, Germany. Approximately 211,000 participants seized the opportunity to take advantage of 1,920 exhibitors from 43 different countries presenting the latest products in the construction and built environment. According to this years focus "The future of Building" the trade show put a special emphasis on renewable energy sources and the solutions which the different technologies offer for the building and construction industry. With more than 50 exhibitors from the solar building sector the trade show also reflected the exponential growth and rising influence of the solar industry.

Organised by the European Commission's Information Society and Media Directorate-General, in cooperation with the Czech Presidency of the European Union, the ICT4EE conference took place in Brussels on 19-20 March 2009. This event aimed to accord visibility to the potential of ICTs in enabling energy efficiency across the economy and in particular it will show how ICT-based innovations may provide one of the potentially most cost-effective means to achieve the 2020 energy and climate targets. The conference was complemented by an exhibition of stands illustrating results achieved by relevant EU-funded projects and a set of stands for international initiatives including the relevant European Technology Platforms.

EU Commissioner for Science and Research Janez Potocnik, agreed on Wednesday 1th of April with high-level representatives of the automotive, construction and manufacturing sectors that smart investments in clean technologies should be made within a public private partnership framework. They recognized the importance of coordination of such investments at EU level.