Europe is not doing enough to reduce the energy consumption of its ageing public buildings. An EU-funded project has tested a number of new energy-saving technologies in a school, a university and two hospitals.
An EU-funded research team has studied the impacts of economics, social cohesion, technology as well as geopolitical and environmental issues on secure and sustainable energy supplies in Europe. They developed a pioneering citizen manifesto for energy governance and the transition to reliable, renewable sources.
The world's cities account for less than 3% of its land surface, but they are already home to much of its population. By 2050, two-thirds of us are projected to live in urban areas, where joined-up management of food, water and energy will be increasingly important. A wave of partly EU-funded projects is about to explore this sustainability issue.
Processing urban wastewater is typically limited to cleaning it up for release into the environment. This is a shame, because it contains compounds that could be put to good use - as could the water itself. EU-funded researchers have tested promising innovations to advance resource-efficient processing, recovery of substances, and re-use.
European researchers have developed models and tools to boost the performance, reliability and lifetime of commercial photovoltaic (PV) systems. Their results, which are already being used by energy operators, were validated using data analysed from diverse installations across Europe.
Is it possible to produce electric cars on a very large scale? At the moment, this can depend on costly materials that must be imported. More specifically, this concern relates to the rare earth magnets on which their motors tend to rely. EU-funded researchers have developed promising technology that works without them.
EU-funded researchers have been recognised for their ground-breaking work on recovering and reusing waste material in nuclear fusion reactors. They developed and demonstrated new membrane technologies capable of decontaminating waste and extracting valuable tritium for re-use.
EU-funded researchers have developed new planning techniques that will help ensure Europe's existing smart grid infrastructure can sustainably meet growing demand for plug-in electric vehicles - and they want to see these cars communicating with charging stations.
The production of cement and lime involves fossil fuels and produces harmful greenhouse gases. Industry could change this, if scientists can develop a technology that can use solar power for high temperature industrial processes. The EU-funded SOLPART project has built lab-scale reactors that use a solar powered process to meet this need.
