Published on: Monday, 04 May 2015

Researchers from the Nimbus Centre at CIT have been successful in winning funding for two prestigious ‘Horizon 2020’ Projects in the ‘ICT for Energy Efficient Buildings’ call 2015. They will receive approximately €1.5M from the EU funding program as part of the development of two international projects.

One of their successful proposals scored highest out of 40 international proposals, with 3 in total being funded. Dr Dirk Pesch, Head of The Nimbus Centre, said: “This is a hugely positive achievement for Irish Research, simultaneously elevating the impact of Ireland on the European Energy stage and assisting jobs, education, and innovation, at home. The funding will continue to strengthen the research that is happening in Nimbus, and CIT, on the ‘energy efficient buildings’ topic. This contributes to creating a sustainable Europe for future generations”.
 
The ‘National Sustainable-Building Energy Test-Bed’ is located on campus at CIT, and other Industry and Research projects using it are already underway. The research will help improve Europe’s energy efficiency, reducing the gap between predicted, and actual energy performances, in buildings thereby improving carbon emissions and saving money.

The first successful project is called TOPAs (Tools for Continuous Building Performance Auditing). Dr Susan Rea, Dr Alan McGibney, and their team, will develop tools and services to support continuous energy performance monitoring. The CIT campus will be leveraged for the demonstration and validation of the TOPAs solution.
 
The second project is MOEEBIUS (Modelling Optimization of Energy Efficiency in Buildings for Urban Sustainability) where Dr Christian Beder with Juan Manuel Escaño and Dr Niel Canty will optimise building energy control mechanisms, and implement automatic fault detection and equipment maintenance. A virtual reality environment will be created, allowing building maintenance staff to optimise their work processes.

The projects involve several Irish and European Academic and Industry partners, with Tyndall National Institute being a partner on one project.
 
The Nimbus Centre is supporting Ireland in leading the emerging ’Internet of Things’ boom, helping Irish companies develop smart, connected, products and services.