Applied Research

The scope of the applied research activities is to determine, through continual monitoring of the planning, implementation and operation phases in the two act2 districts, which factors -as compared to current conventional procedures- are decisive when carrying out ambitious energy-efficient construction and renovation projects as standard practice i.e. on a large scale.

While carrying out large scale demonstration projects during the past four years act2 partners have identified five major planning processes, namely:

1. Energy Efficient retrofitting (target group housing associations)
2. Establishment or extension of the district heating system
3. Setting up new energy (ecological) standards
4. Urban Regeneration
5. Working with the tertiary sector

These processes were differentiated in barriers and obstacles, instruments to overcome them and recommendations for political/legal, technical/economic and social/cultural aspects. act2 project partners have tested relevant instruments to overcome the encountered barriers, in many cases there is more than one. Taking as for example the lack of knowledge and skills of stakeholder, act2 has set up local working groups. These working groups have elaborated stakeholder orientated educational and training programmes, quality assurance programmes, organised visits of demonstration projects or have set up incentive programmes.

Experiences gained have been and will be described in reports, booklets and fact sheets or presented at workshop, conferences and events. A key output will be a kind of an urban planning tool box summarizing the tools tested and developed under act2, expected for summer 2011.