Research projects

DigiPEQ
Building expertise for the sustainable development and implementation of digital, liveable plus-energy neighbourhoods

The consortium is developing a future-oriented and customised qualification measure for the sustainable development and implementation of digital, liveable PlusEnergy districts. The primary objectives of this qualification programme are to increase research, development and innovation expertise in the participating companies and to network and establish sustainable collaborations. Further objectives are to feed back into teaching at the participating universities of applied sciences and universities and to develop an academic course at the Technikum Wien Academy in order to make the content developed permanently and widely available.

With the targets defined in the energy and climate policy framework strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 % by 2030 (compared to 1990), the European Union faces the challenge of implementing innovative solutions in the area of energy supply. In current national and European research and implementation programmes, the combination of individual buildings into intelligently interacting associations and districts plays a key role in the optimised and economical use of highly volatile renewable energy sources. More interdisciplinary interface and core competences in the planning and operation of decentralised neighbourhood energy systems are required from companies for their implementation.

Due to the lack of available training and further education courses in this future-oriented field, the consortium is developing a customised qualification measure for the sustainable development and implementation of digital, liveable PlusEnergyQuartiers (PEQ). The content focuses on the topics of renewable local and regional energy supply, energy flexibility, digital infrastructure, highly efficient buildings, load shifting, grid efficiency and sector coupling. In addition, the integration of users and their requirements for liveable neighbourhoods as socio-technical systems as well as innovative cooperation and business models are the focus of consideration.

To this end, a flexible training concept is being developed that takes into account the time budget, prior knowledge and interests of the participating experts and is based on a variety of didactic methods. The knowledge acquired will be applied on an ongoing basis within the framework of individual and small group projects using 4 real example PlusEnergy neighbourhoods and anchored in the companies in the long term with the help of transfer projects.

In summary, the following objectives are to be achieved:

To impart the necessary interdisciplinary skills for the development, implementation and operation of innovative, digital PlusEnergy neighbourhoods
Increasing research, development and innovation expertise in the participating companies
Networking and establishing sustainable cooperation within the consortium that goes beyond the project via jointly initiated research activities, in the form of a working group or for the realisation of "off-the-shelf PlusEnergy districts"
Integrating the results into the teaching of the university partners and developing an academic course at the Technikum Wien Academy in order to make the content developed permanently available.