Industrialisation of deep renovation workflows for energy-efficient buildings

Call updates

Dec 9, 2021 9:43:06 AM
The call HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01 has closed on 19 October 2021.
55 proposals have been submitted. The breakdown per topic is: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-02: 14 proposals

Jun 24, 2021 12:00:07 AM
The submission session is now available for: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-01(HORIZON-IA), HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-02(HORIZON-IA), HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-05(HORIZON-IA), HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-03(HORIZON-IA), HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-04(HORIZON-IA)

Industrialisation of deep renovation workflows for energy-efficient buildings
TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01-02

Programme: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)
Call: Efficient, sustainable and inclusive energy use (HORIZON-CL5-2021-D4-01)
Type of action: HORIZON-IA HORIZON Innovation Actions
Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]
Deadline model: single-stage
Opening date: 24 June 2021
Deadline date: 19 October 2021 17:00:00 Brussels time

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to some of the following expected outcomes:

• Significant improvement in productivity of construction and renovation processes for energy-efficient buildings, supporting an increase in scale in the renovation process and streamlining resource efficient nearly zero-energy performance renovation: 30 % waste reduction; improved quality of renovation; at least 30% and towards 50% reduction of on-site construction / renovation work time and 25% costs reduction.
• More affordable renovation projects for owners, for all building types but with a specific focus on residential buildings.
• Enhanced quality of construction, backed up by post-occupancy evaluations, also supporting a better integration of design and construction activities, streamlining commissioning of buildings, in particular in relation to energy management but also taking into account cross-cutting issues such as accessibility of buildings.
• Reduced performance gap between as-built and as-designed (difference between theoretical and measured performance), allowing tracking performance across the life cycle.
• Increased trust towards construction and renovation processes, by allowing tracking energy performance across the life-cycle.
• Upskilled workforce for industrialised renovation workflows, including automated and robotised construction / renovation, relying on interoperable digital modelling data.
• Enhanced safety of the construction workforce and increased acceptance of robotic support for deep renovation.
• Innovative, tailored business models for deep renovation allowing increased scale of renovation, generating economies of scale and increasing the potential for attractive and affordable packages for end users including financing.
• Tailored access to building information across the life cycle for relevant stakeholders (owners, facility managers, contractors, public authorities).
• Integration with distributed renewable energy sources in neighbourhoods and districts, favouring the emergence of related initiatives (e.g. renewable energy communities).
• Enhanced synergies of renovation with local resources, e.g. district heating & cooling networks.

Scope:

Several recent projects & calls have focused on prefabrication for deep renovation, but more work is needed to innovate seamless workflows from design through to offsite manufacture, installation, and compliance checking on site, also ensuring due consideration of life cycle performance. There is also a need for more demonstrations across the EU.

Proposals should:

• Investigate innovative approaches for industrialised deep renovation, covering the whole workflow from design through to offsite manufacture, installation, compliance checking on site and end strategies for maintenance, operation and end of life.
• Make use of innovative processes and technologies, including those delivered by previous research such as design based on circularity principles, prefabricated components and digital tools, that allow to optimise workflows (cost, time, quality, resource use).
• Develop significantly improved integrated digital twin solutions that can support all stakeholders involved in the different phases of the construction or renovation processes, i.e. from concept to end-of-use, including design, construction, commissioning, operation (management and maintenance) and, where relevant, change of use.
• Demonstrate a seamless integration of the proposed approaches with state-of-the-art digital technologies for construction and renovation (Building Information Modelling, digital twins, etc.).
• Investigate the use of robotic systems and automation such as additive manufacturing, on-site automated and robotic systems (e.g. robots for building component assembly), drones and autonomous vehicles (e.g. for surveying, inspection and monitoring), and other types of automated support to augment workers’ capability and safety (e.g. lift robots, exoskeletons) for deep renovation.
• Investigate the application of the proposed approaches at neighbourhood- and district-level, with the aim to maximise synergies in renovation work and processes, decrease costs, and to optimise the use of energy-related shared district resources (e.g. heating and cooling networks, renewable energy sources, energy storage facilities, etc.).
• Select processes and technologies that have a maximum potential for rapid and broad deployment at European level, with due consideration of the sector’s practices.
• Ensure effective involvement of the buildings supply chain, in particular SMEs, as well as of building owners/tenants and other relevant stakeholders.
• Where relevant, investigate whether and how the proposed approaches could apply to cultural heritage buildings.
• Ensure the proposed approaches allow to reach the highest level of energy performance, also considering other relevant aspects (e.g. life cycle, accessibility), while keeping costs in an attractive range for owners.
• Seek to ensure from the design phase that the project is developed with a view to integrate its results/deliverables under a digital building logbook.
• Demonstrate, based on well-defined metrics and key performance indicators, that the innovative approaches proposed lead to fewer mistakes, less waste, higher resource efficiency, higher quality in particular with regard to energy performance (reduced performance gap), increased replicability across sites, and other relevant life cycle aspects, enhanced safety of workers and their ability to work alongside robots, and faster construction.
• Investigate business models in view of mass deployment and EU-wide impact, seeking to address split of incentives between the owner and tenant of a building as a barrier to investments.
• Lead at least 3 large-scale demonstration to assess the proposed approaches for a variety of buildings typologies representative of the European building stock, ensuring the most adequate coverage of climatic conditions.

Clustering and cooperation with other relevant projects is strongly encouraged; in particular, liaison and synergies with the Horizon Europe Partnerships on ‘People-centric sustainable built environment’ and ‘Driving Urban Transitions’.

Specific Topic Conditions:
Activities are expected to achieve TRL 8 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Cross-cutting Priorities:
Societal Engagement