The goal of the Cultural-E project is going a step beyond Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs) towards the future of Plus Energy Buildings (PEBs). The team is approaching this topic by looking at climate and cultural differences in the use of residential buildings around Europe. By the end of the five years the project will have built four new Plus Energy Buildings in France, Germany, Italy and Norway. Cultural-E will also produce design tools, smart technologies, methodologies and policy recommendations, freely available for all stakeholders along the value chain.

The aim of the syn.ikia project is to increase the proportion of sustainable neighbourhoods  with surplus renewable energy in different contexts,  climates and markets in Europe. Besides providing a net energy surplus, syn.ikia demo neighbourhoods will have high architectural quality, improved indoor environment compared to the 2020 NZEB. They will demonstrate the functionality of the plus-energy neighbourhood concept for the rest of Europe. The project will also actively speed-up the development of technologies for energy efficiency, RES, storage, flexibility and exploitation to all relevant market actors.