The Austrian EXCESS Demo case is located in “Tagger-Werk”, a former industrial area in the south of Graz, the second-largest city in Austria. Lying southeast of the Alps in the Styria region, the city's weather and climate is mainly influenced by the Mediterranean rather than the North Atlantic, resulting in a high hourly average of sunshine per year.
The EXCESS demo case, a former feed production silo, is part of a 19 building strong complex with ~31.000 m² gross floor area. Upon completion, the EXCESS positive energy silo will become a student hostel. Since 2012, about a third of the buildings have been redesigned for mixed use and are meeting low energy building standards.
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Key technologies & innovative solutions
A passive house standard will be achieved by activating the existing thermal mass of the building structure via pre-fabricated multifunctional facade elements including integrated PVs which are to supply heat and cold to the building.
The energy supply for the entire area will be ensured primarily through locally produced renewable energy (solar energy, groundwater heat pumps, small hydropower). Innovative elements for load shifting, storage, user integration and interaction with the local electricity grid will be integrated and coupled with a smart, predictive control system to achieve maximum energy flexibility.
Building level innovation
Highly insulated prefabricated multifunctional façade with component activation as thermal energy storage element.
Smart contracts
Negotiation & customisation of contractual relationships with aggregators, for example contract duration, demand response triggering, assets and flexibility sharing.
System level innovation
Implementation of a cascadic heat pump system for heating and cooling, as well as of a smart control system checking consumer demand and comfort, as well as the status of addiitional elements such as water storages & batteries.
Upcoming milestones
A major step planned for 2021 is the issuance of building permits, which are expected in Spring 2021, as well as the installation of the test facade. Construction work is planned to start in mid-2021 with energy system installation to followat the beginning of 2022.
Further information & resources
As a H2020 funded project, in-depth and technical information on the demo cases is made available to the public in the form of reports and other publications that can be downloaded via the EXCESS website (a selection of these is included below). The project images, renderings and video are being design by BAR Vermögensverwaltungs GmbH in collaboration with Joanneum Research and AEE INTEC (AEE Institute for Sustainable Technologies).
Main stakeholders involved
The Austria demo site is led and coordinated by AEE INTEC (AEE Institute for Sustainable Technologies) who participated in the development of Tagger-Werk in collaboration with the site owner BAR. Further demo site partners include Thomas Schwarzl IT Consulting and Joanneum Research.
