The innovative aspect in Pro-GET-OnE (Proactive synergy for Greater Efficiency On buildings’ Envelopes) consists in the following holistic vision: To combine in a same integrated system based on pre-assembled components the highest performances (iii) in terms of i) Energy requirements – by adding (or substituting the existing with) new prefab and plug and play high energy performing envelopes ii) Safety – by using appropriate steel structures to reduce horizontal loads and implementing the structural safety while supporting the new envelopes (timber for opaque parts/surfaces, glass, PV and solar panels) iii) Social sustainability – by ensuring tailored and customized solutions for users and increase the desirability of retrofit options. Building upon the previous experiences, Pro-GET-OnE aims at promoting a holistic optimized approach that goes beyond the results of EU and national projects and the IEA report on Prefabricated Systems for Low Energy Renovation of Residential Buildings. In fact, PRO-GET-ONE proposes the highest transformation of the existing building’s shell with volumetric increase and buffer zones (i.e. sunspace between the building and the outdoor environment, extra room, etc.). These solutions have been designed and analysed in a large set of existing buildings. Being the openings guaranteed, this solution would efficiently provide an effective zone to reduce thermal losses in the cold winter season while ensuring shadow during summer.

Legionnaires’ disease is a serious form of pneumonia caused by bacterium Legionella pneumophila, with a case-fatality ratio on the order of 10-15%. L. pneumophila proliferates in aquatic habitats, especially in potable water, air conditioning, hot and cold water systems, cooling towers, evaporative condensers, spa/natural pools. Actually, its detection and monitoring rely on time-consuming protocols (in the order of several days) based on in-vitro selective bacteria culture methods, performed by highly specialized personnel in dedicated laboratories. POSEIDON project targets to change the approach in bacteriological environmental monitoring and in infection risk management by developing a fully automatic and reliable system. Handling of the air/water sample will be designed and integrated in preconditioning system and microfluidic device through which whole bacteria cells will be transported from the sampling module to the sensing plasmonic surface. The complete measure protocol will be integrated and performed according to EU legislation guidelines. Specificity will be ensured by immuno-functionalization of gratings surfaces and enhanced system sensitivity will be granted by the optimization of the optical detection system architecture. Sensors based on Grating Coupled Surface Plasmon Resonance (GC-SPR) in azimuthally rotating configuration have recently proved sensitivity enhancement up to almost two orders of magnitude. Furthermore, the symmetry breaking related to grating rotation allows exploiting the incident polarization, more easily controlled with respect to incidence wavelength and angles interrogation. The prototype will be designed to be integrated in water distribution or HVAC systems in order to demonstrate its feasibility in industrially relevant fields and to open new applications and new market opportunities. POSEIDON project aims to address new solutions in this relevant health and safety societal challenge.

Heating consumption in the residential sector in Europe is around 2300 TWh/y, DHW consumptions reaches 500 TWh/y, while cooling consumption is less than 100 TWh/y. The construction sector offers unique opportunities to decarbonise the European economy. However, as the replacement rate of the existing stock is very small (1-1.5 % per year), acceleration is needed. On top of this, the reorganisation of the sector poses tremendous challenges due to its extreme fragmentation: more than 50% of the residential buildings are owned by private single owners. Moreover, whilst few major industrial players are active on the market, it is largely dominated (more than 95%) by SMEs both on the manufacturers’ and the professionals’ side. BuildHEAT addresses this challenging sector by: - elaborating systemic packages for the deep rehabilitation of residential buildings - developing innovative technologies facilitating the implementation of the renovation measures - developing financial tools enabling large public and private investments - involving the construction chain from the very beginning and all along the building life cycle. A set of reliable, energy efficient and affordable retrofit solutions will be mad available, which execution is facilitated by industrialised, modular and flexible HVAC, façade and ICT systems developed. Despite the affordability, innovative solutions are more expensive compared to off the shelf ones. Therefore financing models are needed to facilitate the massive entry to market of the new technologies. BuildHEAT aims to leverage large private investments by using European structural funds, thus promoting retrofit actions at quarter level. Finally, BuildHEAT involves the entire construction chain – from owners to professionals to investors – in the retrofit process and all along the lifetime of the building, by addressing technical, behavioural, cultural and economic perspectives. In this way, awareness and involvement are triggered.