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Objectives


MEZeroE aims to create a vibrant ecosystem in the shape of a multi-side virtual marketplace, open to encouraging cross-fertilization among stakeholders in the construction industry. The ecosystem will provide turn-key start-up and upscaling services for modelling, testing, and monitoring nZEB (near-zero energy building) enabler envelope technology solutions (nEES), while setting up a comprehensive knowledge management environment as well as tailored training. 

© Focchi
Schenck Studio Gang Focchi Solar Carve

The motivations behind these objectives are clear: in order to develop and test their innovations quickly and enter the market successfully, SMEs and larger companies in the building sector need simple access to the right technology infrastructure. This infrastructure is broad-ranging. It has to include testing facilities, equipment, and professional skills as well as the technical and business support services needed to develop, test and upscale technology to advance from validation in a laboratory up to higher TRLs before considering competitive market entry.


Objectives related to OITB service validation (OITB demonstration) 

  • To validate technology with dedicated M&V protocols according to specific TRL for advanced and non-standard nEES, considering three main steps of the performance characterization path: (i) lab tests (controlled boundary conditions) at TRL4/5; (ii) building emulator tests (outdoor facilities with uncontrolled climatic forcing factors) at TRL6/7; (iii) real buildings as living lab (uncontrolled forcing factors, from users and context) at TRL7/8.
  • To define a comprehensive approach for indoor environmental quality control (thermal comfort, air quality, lighting, acoustics) including monitoring, post-occupancy evaluation (POE), dedicated dashboard, and co-benefits evaluations
  • To identify new opportunities to tackle societal challenges by overcoming regulatory, economic and technical barriers and developing a dedicated risk-assessment procedure to support design, procurement and implementation, also considering fire safety engineering, noise control, indoor soundscape and daylight optimization.

Objectives related to the long-term sustainability of the MEZeroE OITB (Business case) 

  • To stimulate growth and jobs through mentoring and coaching. The consortium includes four partner categories, including RTD, IND, M&V, BIZ, which have been created to stimulate growth and job creation, to train practitioners, and to support industries in retaining and developing skills.
  • To stimulate strong private sector involvement with an eye toward enhancing product competitiveness and impact. Transferring our digital industrial 4.0 vision to the physical world will lead to business opportunities through an open innovation ecosystem based on our upscaling approach.
  • To plan and implement local stakeholders’ engagement through dedicated workshops and seminars, enhancing the culture of a performance-based approach that will not only trigger the decarbonization of building stocks, but will also increase local stakeholders’ visibility on a wider scale, using a virtual platform as a vehicle to open the innovation beyond geographical boundaries.
  • To create a structured knowledge management environment: produced data is archived according to a set of tags facilitating the lessons learned from each previous test/service. It will function based on data categorization and archiving by using existing open-source smart search engines (e.g., Elastic search).