Technology

19 organisations from 10 countries were the winners of this year's GreenLight and GreenBuilding awards, which are given by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre to recognise the efforts of both governments and private organisations to maximise energy efficiency in buildings and lighting.

Constructora d'Aro and Compact Habit were presented with an award in the New Building category, alongside five other initiatives from Germany, Austria, Sweden and Denmark. All of them have reduced energy consumption by between 55% and 100%; the most efficient of all being the kindergarten constructed by the German company Gold-Kraemer-Stiftung, which has achieved a 100% reduction in energy consumption (saving of 94.1 MWh per year). The Catalan companies were presented with the award for a building used for education, which consumes 70.79% less energy than other similar conventional buildings (607.6 MWh saving per year).

The average energy saved by the award winners in all categories is 68.5%. Usually a non-residential building consumes around 0.230 MWh per square metre and year, while all the GreenBuilding winners achieved less than half that consumption; some even reaching values as low as 0.030 MWh/m2 per annum.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions in the EU, and therefore energy efficiency is critical in this sector to achieving the targets set for 2020. The GreenLight and GreenBuilding programmes provide valuable examples of how this goal can be achieved through the application of new and innovative technologies.

For additional information:

http://europa.eu