Human. Nature. Built Environment. Scale Jumping Nexus. Energy

Promoting restorative actions for urban regeneration necessarily requires some reflection on productive renewable energy technologies (PV, solar thermal panels, geothermal, biomass, etc.) that can be integrated into the building envelope and/or urban districts to reduce human environmental impact. Renewable energies not only help to decrease the building energy consumption to zero, but also the emissions of CO2 and other climate-altering substances, throughout the life cycle of the building, with a view to continuously protecting the environment and its resources. Over recent years, many European Community programmes have funded (micro to macro scale) renewable energies within the building sector, to overcome the nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) target, introducing the new concepts of Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs). Especially the “Buildings design for new highly energy performing buildings”[1] call, focused on development and demonstration of applied solutions, which significantly reduce the cost of new buildings with at least ‘nearly zero-energy’ performance levels, whilst significantly accelerating the speed with which these buildings and their systems find a way into the mainstream market. The innovative solutions should address the challenge to move towards a ‘Positive Energy Building” (PEB) standard on a large scale with demonstration projects that go beyond the “traditional” ‘nearly-zero energy’ buildings” levels, to the point where buildings are active contributors to energy production and environmental quality in particular when new neighbours are planned (e.g., Positive Energy Districts).