The USE Efficiency Final Conference took place on January 12 and 13 at the Central European University.

The conference was co-organized by the Regional Environmental Center and the Central European University, together with more than 10 universities across Europe, the European Commission and representatives of important international media.

The USE Efficiency project was funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme (EACI - Executive Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation) with the aim of improving energy efficiency in tertiary buildings and establishing training programmes for university students. The project benefited from a very powerful exchange of experience and know-how through the participation of many universities and students from different parts of Europe.

The core of the USE Efficiency project was the Summer School 2011, during which more than 100 students from 15 different nationalities shared their knowledge and collaborated in working groups to develop projects for transforming existing buildings into low-energy buildings.  The summer school resulted in a new, unique multiethnic sharing experience around sustainability issues for university students from Europe. Some of the Summer School participants were able to share their experiences at the Budapest conference.

The final Use Efficiency conference in Budapest provided a perfect opportunity to think about new actions and synergies for the future. Discussions focused on possible new partnerships, involving market players, universities and local authorities. The conference also allowed new actors to learn more about the achievements of USE Efficiency and their impact on the European educational system.

Downloads

Agenda

Minutes

January 12 presentations - First Part (Zip file, 38 MB)

January 12 presentations - Second Part (Zip file, 36 MB)

January 13 presentations (Zip file, 53 MB)

November was the month of national events. Starting with Brunel`s Second National Event, it was unique in the sense that it was a series of events in October and November. It consisted of presentations to students in three universities and an international conference.

Presentation of UK student project to AIVC International Conference 12 October 2011

A paper based on the UK student project was presented to the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Conference on 12 October 2011, held in Brussels.  The conference was attended by 160 delegates from many countries.  The presentation was well received and the paper with USE Efficiency project was explicitly mentioned.  More information on the AIVC 2011 conference can be found on www.aivc.org .

Presentations on passive energy strategies for buildings:

1. Seminar to architectural students at Oxford Brooks University, Oxford, 19 October 2011

2. Seminar to architectural students at London Metropolitan University, North London,

26 October 2011

The project was presented to about 25 students and some principles.

3. Seminar to engineering and architectural students at University College London, London, 2 November 2011

The project was presented to about 45 students and some principles.

AUTH is having busy months touring around with the project in Europe. Between November 6-10, 2011 a visit in Romania took place, where the USE Efficiency project and its outcomes were presented to students and professors from the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and the University of Oradea. They presented the USE Eff philosophy, targets and results in three sessions to 160 students from different engineering Faculties and to more than 15 Professors. The interest was great, the discussions fruitful and the willingness to participate in any future project secured.

Between November 16-18, 2011 a visit in FYR Macedonia took place by Prof. G. Papagiannis, where the USE Efficiency project and its outcomes were presented to students, professors and experts in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies of the Ss Cyril & Methodius University of Skopje, and in the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University St Kliment Ohridski of Bitola.

UNITOV also organized its first National event in Rimini on 11 and 12 November.  The second national event will be in Rome in 30th November and 1st December 2011 with the involvement of politicians and market players.

HCU and IWU organized its national event on November 17^th as part of the 47th conference of the “Arbeitskreis Energieberatung”. They distributed a flyer and sent out 3000 invitations by email. The event was also posted on the ENOB-Homepage (http://www.enob.info) and in the Energy Forum of HIS, the Higher Education Information System (http://www.his.de). The topic of the conference was: “Energy Efficiency in existing non-residential Buildings”.

The biggest happening of the month at HCU was the meeting with the summer school students on the 26 October. Five (out of ten) HCU students attended the meeting with Prof. Dietrich and Ms Sonja Schelbach to discuss about the summer school. Altogether the feedback was very positive, and students would definitely attend such a summer school again. They most liked and enjoyed the diversity of the cultures and backgrounds. Though they suggested some improvements like only 5 days were dedicated to work on the projects and students would have liked to have much more time for that and less time for lectures.

Following the decisions of the last project meeting in Aarhus, Denmark, the AUTH USE Efficiency team started the dissemination campaign to other Universities in Greece and in neighboring countries. On October 11-13, 2011 a visit in Cyprus took place where the USE Efficiency project and its outcomes were presented by students and professors from the University of Cyprus and from Frederick University.

The AUTH team consisted of Prof. G. Papagiannis and Dr. Th. Papadopoulos, both involved in the USE Efficiency project. The project and the overall background have been presented in 3 presentations, as well as a short film from the Valencia summer school. The first presentation by Prof. G. Papagiannis dealt with the EU energy policy, the energy saving potential in buildings, the EPBD and its implementation, the barriers and the role of the Intelligent Energy Europe programme, the presentation of the USE Efficiency project, the milestones achieved so far and the targets reached. In the 2nd presentation, Dr. Th. Papadopoulos presented in more details the specific work that has been done in AUTH and in the other participating Universities, regarding the first level audit, the selection of buildings, the training courses and the 2nd level audits by the students. The 3rd presentation by Prof. G. Papagiannis was about the Valencia Summer School, starting from the targets and going on through the actual work that has been achieved in the summer school, till the results obtained and the overall evaluation. The presentation ended with a 2 minute short film about the Valencia USE Eff summer school.

IWU started to prepare the national event on November 17^th.  They distributed a flyer and 3000 invitations have been sent out by email. It was posted on the ENOB-Homepage (http://www.enob.info) and in the Energy Forum of HIS, the Higher Education Information System (http://www.his.de). Writing this summary, about 70 attendees have registered already.

Brunel was busy with the 2nd national event that they are organizing with three universities and about 100 students altogether.

UPVLC also started the planning and preparation of the 2^nd national event where Use Efficiency results will be presented. They expect 100 participants: students, market players, professors.

September has been a busy month for all the partners. The most important event of the month was the project meeting between 29-30 September, at IHA, in Aarhus, Denmark.

All partners in the project were invited and the ones that could not attend joined via video conference. Ove Poulsen, Rector at IHA welcomed the participants and presented the new IHA structure.

On the 2^nd day some of the students, that have attended the Summer School, were invited as well. The topics discussed were about:

• the expectations and the outputs;
• what could be better?
• what should be different?
• social, theoretical and international benefits
• would you join again?

Some of the conversations were video recorded (30 min) and after the project partners left IHA had a talk about the ”interview” with some of the students. They were very pleased to see the partners again and to be a part of the evaluation of the summer school. A lot of pictures were taken and also a movie of the project meeting.

Apart from that USE Efficiency lecturing are ongoing at IHA. They have just finished the lectures, with 45 new students doing the theory.

Students started the project with energy efficiency in their building late August and are handing in the project proposals Monday 10^th of October.

The students also came with at least 3 concept proposals and presented the proposals in groups, for the rest of the students and professors at the 26^th of September.

Another very important event of the month was the USE-Efficiency National Event, in London, on 23 September 2011. The National Event took the form of a student conference entitled ‘People and Buildings’. The event took place at the offices of ARUP (consulting engineers) at 8 Fitzroy Street, London.

The event was advertising extensively in universities in the UK.  The programme of the day included an introduction to the USE Efficiency project followed by student presentations from nine universities in the UK.  The student submitted written papers available at http://nceub.commoncense.info/index.php?n=Network.HomePage.

The participating universities are:

1. Brunel University
2. Cardiff University
3. London Metropolitan University
4. University of Nottingham
5. University of East London
6. University College London
7. Loughborough University
8. Sheffield Hallam University
9. Oxford Brooks University
10. Plus 4 non-UK universities (University of Damman, SA, Uganda Martyrs University, Victoria University of Wellington, Technical University of Denmark)

The event was attended by approximately 100 people. Five prizes were awarded which were judged by a panel of judges from academia and industry (John Easton, Ingenium Archial  Ltd, Jake Hacker, Arup, Malcolm Cook, Loughborough University, Fionn Stevenson, Sheffield Hallam University, Michael  Fedeski, Cardiff University, Luisa Botas London Metropolitan University,  Fergus Nicol, NCEUB Network and London Metropolitan University, Maria Kolokotroni, Brunel University).

At HCU on 15 September students from the training course handed over their final reports for the University building in Averhoffstraße 38.

VGTU published an article about summer school in local unversity paper „ Inžinerija“, which can be found: http://www.vgtu.lt/media/files/1/14224-inz11.pdf It is also printed in 700 copies and distributied inside the university. Number of readers (VGTU students + stuff) approx. 17 000.