Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the EU Energy Projects Podcast, a podcast series from Enlida and France focusing on the clean energy transition for the European Union and the EU Commission funded energy projects that will help us achieve it. My name is Aretid Daradimu. I. I am the editor of the EU Energy Projects Podcast and your host.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: As Europe accelerates its transition towards a climate neutral energy system, buildings are becoming a central part of the solution.
No longer simply places where energy is consumed, buildings are increasingly evolving into active components of the energy system capable of producing, storing and managing energy in smarter and more flexible ways.
In this episode of the EU Energy Projects Podcast, we explore how thermal energy storage and smart building integration can help unlock flexibility in local energy systems while empowering citizens to play a more active role in the energy transition.
The discussion follows the Flexible Solutions Empowering Citizen session and at the Enlit Europe 2025 in Bilbao where several EU funded projects presented innovative approaches to improving building performance while also integrating new storage and digital solutions.
Joining us today are Emilia Pisani and Guillermo Andres Nieto, representing the Thermal Energy Storage Cluster, or tess.
Together we will explore how thermal storage technologies, digitalization and sometimes citizen participation can transform buildings into smarter, more flexible and more sustainable components of Europe's energy system.
Hello both. Thank you for being here today.
And to begin, could you briefly introduce the cluster and explain the main objectives in improving energy efficiency and flexibility in buildings? I would also like if you could just tell us which are the projects that participate in the cluster and briefly again what it is that they're doing.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: Thank you. Yes, I can start with by presenting the cluster.
So the Test Cluster Thermology Storage Cluster is a collaboration between the four sister projects, Thumbs Up, Echo, Best Storage and High Store. We were all funded through the same call, at the same time, fulfill the same purpose, but we each have different approaches. So at the very beginning of the projects in 2021, we got together and saw that instead of competing against each other and running in parallel, there are many synergies in communication, technical research and especially for troubleshooting, if we were to collaborate and work together. Moreover, many partners are involved in one or more of the projects. So this has created really a really good dynamic between us.
The purpose of the project, the cluster is to collaborate, as mentioned, particularly starting with communication. We have a joint newsletter, joint webinars, joint events. So instead of all addressing the same stakeholder, we address them together with a joint message. One of the big stakeholders is the commission. It's not the same thing if one project says we think this and if we Say four projects researching on the same thing which you finance. We all agree on points A, B and C for the technical part details. I'll leave the floor to Guillermo.
[00:03:41] Speaker D: Thanks so much, Ross, Emilia and Areti. Well, as Emilia, really nice introduced the test cluster was an initiative, a joint initiative from these four projects that are indeed sister projects that were funded at the same time, under the same call of thermal energy storage. And we decided to start this initiative because at the end, independently, that the four projects are different, that are developing different technologies, they are following similar objectives due to the fact that they are funded under the same goal. So in order not to double resources, to follow the same objectives, the same specific objectives, it was decided to collaborate together, to align our different paths in terms of also not only on communication and dissemination purposes, which are indeed quite interesting and important, but also in terms of on technical activities, on technical and research activities, in order to be stronger together, to align, which were our difficult and maybe the most interesting points that were arising from the four activities in the different projects, to understand how to behave together, how to face the different difficulties together, to join forces and of course to understand altogether how to advance and to plan the next steps.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Guillermo, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the thermal energy storage is gaining increasing attention in Europe's energy transition. So I was wondering what role can it play in Balanc energy demand and supporting the integration of renewable energy at the building level, which is something that the cluster is facing, right?
[00:05:19] Speaker D: Yeah, of course. And actually this is due to a plethora of different factors, but one of the most important ones is that I will say there is a clear decoupling between the generation and the demand of energy, generally speaking, not independently of the source, but if we focus, for example, in electricity, that is one of the main topics of interest in terms of energy. In the last years we have seen that the electrified heating and cooling sector has been massively implemented in the European Commission, the European Union countries in the last years. So at the end, the problematic that this decoupling that I was mentioning before is putting on the table is that we are trying to generate as far as possible energy from renewable energy sources, but these renewable energy sources are not producing what we want.
So let's say that sun, it's only shining during the day, not during the nights. Wine, it's only there when it blows.
But we need to take a shower early in the morning. We need to get warm in winter when the temperatures are low. So how is it possible to rely on renewable energy sources? And not to depend again on fossil fuels, while keeping this necessity in terms of energy demand without losing comfort. In the residential sector, for example, the thermal energy storage has precisely to solve this kind of difficulties.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: 80% of the energy demand in buildings in Europe goes to thermal energy consumption and comfort. And one of the solutions are not addressing making it better, making it smarter, is how can you shift this? Provide people comfort throughout the day when they need it, independently of when the renewable energy sources are working.
There's a shift in the production to the consumption. And what we do with these solutions, since they're based at the building level, is we give the end users the power to control when they want to consume it and how they want to consume it. And it's not all or nothing is. They can regulate the temperatures, the consumption, the efficiency of the solutions we're developing.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I will come back to this with a citizen engagement, but for now I would like to ask you another question. I'm not one for age saving.
I promise that, however, our buildings in Europe, or the majority of them, are quite old and they are responsible for a large share of Europe's energy consumption.
Now, what are the main challenges when integrating innovative solutions such as thermal storage into existing buildings?
[00:08:02] Speaker D: Super interesting question already, and thanks for this, because this is indeed one of the main points that we have needed to focus on from the early beginning of the project.
As these four projects on the test class, they are focusing on the residential sector. We have understood that there are a plethora of different typologies of buildings also, depending on the country in which they are located.
We have single family buildings, completely isolated. We have multifamily buildings that can be or not connected to district heating networks, for example, producing on their own the energy that they are consuming or receiving it from a centralized central that is far away on the district.
In this regard, of course, as also mentioned, one of the main difficulties has been to understand how to integrate this kind of innovative technologies into existing buildings, old buildings, because at the end it's relatively easy to design a new technology to be included or inserted into a new building which is being designed with a room that will allocate the enough space to have this technology inside. In our specific case, the four projects, and in our case more specifically, talking on thumbs up, started with a thorough assessment of the pilots that had been identified in order to understand which were the locations within the existing buildings that were capable to allocate enough space for different typologies of technologies in a centralized or even decentralized way. Because for example, in these projects we have understood that doesn't make a lot of sense to have one super big centralized buffer or thermal energy storage. Maybe for this kind of technologies it's more interesting to decentralize the buffers, the technologies into different existing locations in the different floors or even in the roof if there is room space to allocate the innovative technologies that we are working with.
This in what regards the technological or the engineering difficulties, but we need also to take into consideration and here I also leave the floor to my colleague in what regards the citizens engagement and how we have managed to convince them to coexist with this kind of technology. For example, in buildings in which initially were not thought to get allocated.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Exactly. And if I may add to that, Emilia, also I would like to know why do you think it is important for residents and building users to be actively involved in energy efficient solutions?
[00:10:42] Speaker C: Good question.
First, when we're talking about existing buildings, I think we can even divide it even more between the ones that are being renovated and then they open out an opportunity to integrate these new solutions which is sort of a halfway between new buildings, old buildings. Because the solutions we have do need to have some sort of basic digital platform to be connected to, to be able to be controlled. So you can't take an old completely disconnected house that only runs on wood and then you install these. It's not going to work. As for the citizens, it's part to me it has many levels starting with creating awareness about the situation, about how much each individual can influence their consumption and their on the building, their use. Simple things is once again you shift instead of taking a shower, when everybody else takes a shower, you take it a little later, the demand is lower. If you have that flexibility, you're working from home, you don't have to take the shower exactly at the same time as everybody else or you don't need to heat or for example heat your build your apartment when nobody else is heating it so you turn it off when everybody else needs it. Small things like that. So creating this awareness, this empowerment which also might influence create ripple effects in their everyday lives, who they vote for, what they pay attention to, how they all these things that are difficult to measure and see. I also think that we've seen this very much with heat pumps and solar panels, as if once they have it on their phone and they can control it, then they're a lot more aware oh, how much did I consume, how much did I save? How much did I shift? And this is why it's really Important to have the interaction. One of the. You were mentioning district heating, Guillermo, for example, here in Sweden, district heating is a very common thing. People don't even know what it is. They're connected to it, they pay for it every month, but they have no idea it's there. They don't have no idea how it works. However, if you empower them and say like, well, now you have control over your storage out over your consumption, then they're going to be more aware and what I hope is then once again the ripple effects on other actions they have in their lives.
[00:12:40] Speaker D: One super interesting point that has been also necessary to be taken into consideration in this kind of projects is how to save the gap between not only the citizens and in this case the innovation consortium, but also the existing gaps that are between, for example, universities and large private companies at the time of designing this kind of solutions. Because something that could be a super good idea in a lab scale, maybe at the time of putting it into practice, at the time of trying to convince a tenant to have this kind of technologies on their homes, the situation can be completely different.
So from the early beginning, again of the projects, we have deployed several discussions with the tenants of the different buildings in order to understand which were their necessities, which were their fears, that sometimes we could have expected them, but in other cases we have been quite surprised on the different things that they take into consideration while evaluating the possibility of being involved or not on this kind of actions, we do, we took into consideration these aspects in the engineering decisions we have made in the project from the early beginning in order to ease as far as possible their potential acceptance of the solutions at the demonstration campaign.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Do you have any examples, Guillermo?
[00:14:06] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of them. And just to put a couple of specific examples, one of the things that we got from a specific tenants was like, okay, and these kind of solutions smell, I mean, in terms of if they are expected to be allocated in a room that is right next to my bedroom, for example, will be expected to smell in a way that is disgusting. For example, does they make some kind of noise that we are not accustomed to? Or for example, how do they look? No, because we are talking on technologies, we are talking on prototypes, but we are not talking on a nuclear reaction.
So in order to ease this kind of discussions, we understood that it was helpful to identify this kind of prototypes with facilities they already know, like appliances, for example. This is quite similar in terms of space to a washing machine, and it will make less noise than a washing machine. For sure, it will not provide any kind of smell. There is no corrosion alone in this regard. So.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: So they are quite interesting questions, very valid concerns and questions.
[00:15:18] Speaker C: Emilia, another thing we got was safety.
Are they flammable? What happens in case of an accident? How does this react? Will this explode? Things like that. But what I wanted to add to the earlier comment is also involving citizens also increases their willingness to pay. If you come and say have a wonderful solution, it's going to make your building more efficient, improve your resilience.
Okay, but at the end of the day, I need to put food on the table, I need to. Why? How does this impact my wallet? And to be perfectly honest, unfortunately these solutions are not yet these like you're going to save €100 per. No, but it just it. But if you understand the benefit, the greater benefit, the long term benefit, which often is the case, then they may be more willing to make that investment, make that effort, try something new that will allow their not only their apartment or their household, but the building to be more efficient and particularly more resilient. Considering the situation we're in.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Absolutely, it makes total sense. I would like to cycle a little bit back because you mentioned flexibility in one of your answers and flexibility is becoming, or is for a long time now, a key requirement for the future of our energy system.
Now, how do you think can buildings equipped with storage technologies contribute to provided flexibility to the wider grid? You already mentioned something, Emilia, you said that they can check via their phones how much they consume, when timelines, et cetera. That's already, I would say, a valid answer to my question. But is there something else that you would like to add?
[00:16:59] Speaker D: In our specific four projects, we are also developing this kind of automatic building energy management system. So it's not only that we are relying some decisions on the end users that of course can be evaluated, but we are making automatic decisions in terms of the identification of the availability of renewable energy sources, which it's directly connected with this curvace of production and consumption. If we are talking, for example, with PV production in the facilities, we are monitoring this production in real time. But we are also taking into consideration forecasts of consumption in the buildings and also in their surroundings, in order to understand how these buildings are behaving in terms of the connection with not only the electric grid, but also the district heating networks, if these buildings are connected to them, in order to understand if, for example, in half an hour or in an hour we can expect an increase of the energy consumption in the building, how we are expected to behave on that maybe in this hour before we are having some kind of accidents in terms of renewable energy on site that we can use to buffer them into our technologies or into our thermal energy storages, and then deploy this acquired energy to reduce the peaks of energy consumption during the moments in which it's necessary not only for the building, but also for the overall grid of the district or even the city. If we are also considering the potential replication that this kind of application could
[00:18:35] Speaker B: have, I would say from hearing what you were saying right now, and I know we were discussing flexibility, however, immediately my mind went to the fact that many of the solutions that you're mentioning, or from my research that I've done to the. Regarding the cluster and the projects, the solutions you are developing combine different technologies. Like we have storage, we have digital platforms, so digitalization becomes an important aspect. Smart controls, renewable energy systems. How important is this integrated approach when designing the buildings of the future? Would you say it's critical?
[00:19:11] Speaker D: It's critical because we have also to take into consideration that this kind of thermal energy storage require one specific parameter that we are really accustomed to or used to with, for example, our mobile phones, which is the state of charge. I mean, something that is as easy to know, usually like a percentage of, okay, I am charging my phone because I have it on 10% of charge, more or less. What does it mean in terms of time using? But with this kind of innovative technologies, this parameter, for example, is not really well defined. So it's also a matter of the research of these four projects to understand how this state of charge can be identified. And then we need, as you correctly mentioned already, to connect these, or to integrate these kind of parameters into the rest of the building energy management system, if it's already there, or to create a new system that is already integrated in this kind of solutions, of digital solutions, and that is able to, to connect and to coexist with the different information that is in the surroundings of the building in terms of, as also mentioned before, the availability of renewable energy, the potential energy consumption that we could expect in the short term or in a long term, and so on. So the integration is critical in this kind of innovation projects.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Yeah, and if I may, this circles back to your previous question about the flexibility. So you have good control not only at an individual level, but you have some sort of control based on the network level. One of our taglines is balancing the grid one building at a time. If all these buildings can aggregate, each building may not store a lot, but all the buildings aggregate it really can have an impact and allow not only the building owners, the energy communities, the districts or eventually the city to regulate this consumption and production throughout the day or even throughout the week.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Amen to that, I would say. I would like to ask you a little bit from a technical perspective, Emilia and Guillermo, let's focus a little bit in thermal storage technologies. Would you say that there are some innovations or breakthroughs that emerge from your projects?
[00:21:25] Speaker D: Of course they are. Let's say that generally speaking, the four projects, as also mentioned before, have some similarities as it's impossible not to have them, but the different technologies they are developing independently, that maybe some of them are based on the the same principles are completely different.
So generally speaking, the two main base of the technologies that are coming from these four projects are the phase change materials and the thermochemical materials. There are projects such as Hystor, for example, in which they are developing technologies, for example, in the ones coming from the PCM concept that are able to provide both heating and cooling to the buildings, always in a short term, let's say, because at the end, due to the behav of the phase change materials, these kind of technologies can be used for an intraday use, let's say, as we also do in thumbs up, but also in terms of thermochemical technologies, which are usually a bit more complex than the ones based on phase change materials, in the case of thumbs up, we are able to store energy up to four weeks of duration. So at the end, the breakthrough on these kind of technologies that are a lot, but if I had to choose a couple of them, are the possibilities of storing thermal energy in medium long term, let's say, without important sensible losses. I have to say, if compared with for example a usual water hot water buffer tank that we can have in our homes, also the energy density, because at the end of you, if we consider a usual hot water tank, we could be talking on energy densities of around 20 kilowatt hours per meter cubic, just to put an example. And we in thumbs up with the PCM based technologies are talking on 65 kilowatts hour per meter cubic. So it's three times this kind of technologies. And if we talk on all the technologies based on thermochemical, in thumbs up, we are aiming as an objective, the energy density is up to 120 kilowatt hours per meter cubic. So let's say that a smaller space to allow or to room more energy. And of course also considering the capex to lower the necessary investment on the tenants to have this kind of technologies allocated in their houses.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: I think this is also one of the benefits of the collaboration. Since we are developing different technologies, we can also. It's easier to compare which ones work. I mean, we're not at a TRL level 10 yet where we're working on it. So for example, I know hi story mentioned earlier, they're connecting it directly to heat pumps. How can these storage integrated with heat pumps work or not work? We're working on something different. And so this allows us to really compare as we progress, the benefits, disadvantages, lessons learned from each technology that's being developed and each approach that's had depending on the consortium.
[00:24:14] Speaker D: And in this way, another super interesting point in terms of breakthroughs and key objectives of the four projects is the point on the environmental footprint and also the cycling stabilities of these kind of solutions.
Because looking at the state of the art of these kind of technologies, we can see corrosion difficulties, difficulties also coming on. What happened with this kind of projects when their end of life is coming, how we can recycle them? This is what happened right before these four projects arose. Because now one of our main objectives from the early beginning of the project is to use materials that are environmentally friendly, that can ensure a long duration in terms of cycling. And that as everything, every life comes to an end when these lives come to an end, that it relatively easy to recycle them or to put them into another purpose. That's another breakthrough important of the projects.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: Can these innovative solutions be replicated and what will determine whether these solutions that we are developing can be deployed at scale across Europe? Because this is also a key point for the European Commission and for everybody, I would say.
[00:25:34] Speaker D: Well, first of all, what we need to consider is that heating and cooling sector in the residential buildings is sufficient, suffering a lot of changes in the last years. So one of the main important ones is that the temperatures that we need to warm or to cool our houses are quite narrower than the ones that we were accustomed to several years ago.
We were used to have in our cases with our radiators like 80 degrees 20 years ago. But now with the radiant floors, we are more accustomed to temperatures that are like 25 or 30 degrees. So it's much lower. So now it's not necessary to rely on gas boiling, for example, to warm our houses. It's better to have solutions such as Emilia mentioned before, the heat pumps, what we need to take into consideration while exploiting or trying to understand the possibility of replicating the solutions. First of all to have a framework that in terms of temperatures, for example, can make sense. It will not make sense to invest in a technology with which we are trying to enhance not only the flexibility, but also the energy efficiency if we are are still relying on super high temperatures in our residential buildings.
Another point of view, as also mentioned before in the podcast, the aspect related to the availability of space in the buildings, if we are talking on existing buildings and not new buildings, it's necessary to first have some kind of assessment of the possibilities that the building can have in order to understand if we can be flexible in enough to install our solutions. And of course, and here I completely leave again the floor to Emilia, the point on the tenants and their acceptance and what do they need and what do they understand that they need? Because maybe from the case of Veolia, as the coordinators of Thumbs up, we have quite clear that the benefits can come in 10 years or 15 years. But maybe a tenant doesn't have it as clear.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. Emilia, thoughts on this?
[00:27:42] Speaker C: It goes back to the raising awareness and their understanding of why these solutions can make sense. And if you raise awareness, then all of a sudden people. Yes, you have more. First, more efficient building envelopes, which means you reduce the consumption once they're renovated. Some of the old buildings are excellent with the really thick window walls and really not so better windows, but you just use the window and that's it. Right. It's part of the renovation. The new buildings are a lot more efficient if you increase the end user's awareness, then instead of raising the temperature, they may be more willing to put a sweater on and that was good enough. Or you put some socks on and then you don't need to increase the temperature on this. Or willingness to accept that maybe I don't need to have it on all the time. Maybe I can lower the temperature at night when I'm sleeping, which is better for your health, but also reduces the consumption. Then instead of having my heater on, I load my compact thermal energy storage and instead. And then I can use it during the day. Things like that, that. That may hopefully will trigger and nudge people into better habits as well.
Exactly.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: We can dress accordingly. Also inside our homes, we don't need to do it only when we are outside. How does the commission help the rules and regulations that are already existent, let's say, regarding storage, et cetera, renewables, Are they helping projects like the ones that, that are represented in the cluster, or are they a little bit problematic? What would you change? Emilia?
[00:29:08] Speaker C: I believe this is A question, Guillermo. You did a podcast, a webinar specifically on this. If I remember correctly, in our case, there was no regulation. It was really. There was sort of like there's nothing neither, or it doesn't support. It doesn't help because it's such a new specific technology and it goes really into people's homes. The regulations we've seen are okay for the district heating, for the electricity grid, for the buildings, for the big envelope, unless in people's homes. So this is sort of a gray zone where maybe some subsidies or a little push would have been nice. But if I remember correctly, there were no limitations either. But here, Guillermo, you're the one who did a whole webinar on the subject.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Absolutely. I didn't know that. Please, Guillermo, let us know about this.
[00:29:55] Speaker D: Thanks so much for Emilian and Areti. Yeah, indeed. One of the points that we also need to study from the beginning of the project was to understand how the regulations or the potential legislation, not only in a European level, but also the specific country level or even local level, could affect difficult or even enhance the application of this kind of thermal energy strategies. So one thing that we understood is that independently that there are directives in a European level, the legislation in a national level is completely different in different countries. In Europe, in our specific case, in Thumbs up, we are demonstrating our technologies in Sweden and also in Spain, the legislation is completely different and needs to be taken into consideration into different perspectives. Here in Spain, for example, we have legislations that are covering the energy facilities, more specifically talking thermal energy facilities, but they are not mentioning specifically the thermal energy storage as we are conceiving it.
When we talk on energy storage, it's always relating to electrical storage. And for this there is another completely different legislation and regulation here in Spain and also in an Europe.
So now it's necessary to understand which are the boundaries between these different legislation until which this legislation is covering our work and when does this other one start? And from the European Commission side, we have received support in terms of gathering the different projects together that are related to, in this specific case, thermal energy storage. I remember, and correct me if I'm wrong, Emilia, it was a couple of years ago. The European Commission asked us, together with another 11, 11 funded European Commission projects that were related to thermal energy storage in different possibilities, not only from a residential point of view, but also on an industrial or even city point of view, to understand which were the main outcomes that we understood that were interesting to be taken into consideration while considering the regulation and the legislation difficulties that we have found in not only an European but also country level how to
[00:32:03] Speaker C: face the them in general we do see more and greater and greater push for resilience for sustainability. You see in the FiT for 55 and the renewable energy EBRD and the building regulation, all these packages which I'm missing right now because in the project. But you do see this push in a general let's make our buildings more efficient, let's have a more efficient system, let's reduce our dependency on fossil fuel, let's increase our autonomy. So within that there is a push and you can fit it. But we haven't seen a specific compact thermology storage in buildings. This is what it needs to be. So a little bit both ways, which I think is good because with these new emerging technologies in the beginning you do need a little bit of space and air to breathe and grow. And then once they've started taking shape, then you can start so of putting in the regulations to guide it to where it wants to go.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: That makes total sense. However, we need to be a little bit proactive, I would say also. So I'm hoping that something will come relatively soon and not, let's say towards the end of the whole thing, which I'm sure will happen because the European Commission has proven to be quite proactive in things like that. As we're finishing now, as we're ending this for me at least. Very interesting discussion. Discussion, hopefully for our listeners also I would like you to just briefly tell me, both of you, looking ahead, how do you see the role of buildings evolving within Europe's future energy system over the next decade?
And let's go with ladies first.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: And then Yugi buildings play a crucial role in this trend. We see once again of decentralization, resiliency. You can't depend on the big system anymore, on the big network, because cities are growing. These networks don't have the capacity to carry all the inhabitants, all the consumption. So we, we do see an inevitable trend towards decentralization. And here buildings can provide more comfort, more control, more independency and yet also are a key building in complementing the greater network. So here you see this decentralization but complexification. The networks are more and more complex. You have the big city network, then you have the district network, you might have the energy community and then you have the building network. It also depends whether you're looking at cities. It's one very specific thing. Densely populated areas have their own dynamics, whereas suburban areas have a different dynamic. And then rural areas last use so here we really need to see, depending on where you're looking and what the effect you want to have. But we do see a trend towards more control, more interactivity which is allowed by these new technologies. Before it was just just one central production and then a distribution. Now people can produce and consume their own thing. I remember now you have solar panels and even batteries for apartments with a tiny balcony, and that's all you need. And so it really is this breaking down and complexification of the system which buildings contribute to.
And to me, I would say a decent level. It's not as small as an apartment, and it's not as large as a huge complex complex. But a building is a piece measure that's easily controllable, but it also can contribute and have enough weight for the whole system, if that makes sense.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Absolutely. A small mansion, maybe.
[00:35:36] Speaker C: Let's.
Exactly,
[00:35:40] Speaker B: Guillermo.
[00:35:41] Speaker D: Well, in my eyes, I think that also Emilia mentioned it before, but it's a matter of turning our minds because we are no longer talking on the passive consumers in terms of the buildings that we have been used to several years ago. Now we are turning these passive consumers into active consumers. So now the buildings and all the tenants are playing an active role in this energy transition, or green energy transition. It's no longer something that just the big companies, the big energy companies have to fight against.
Now we are trying to let the consumers know, the citizens know, that they can have an active role on this via the application, for example, of this kind of decentralized solutions.
So this can increase for sure the energy independence. This can help a lot on important difficulties that we have faced in the last times. As for example, the blackouts as we suffered in Spain some time ago.
Via the application of this kind of solution, the citizens can find themselves as active players in the game and not only as passive ones. Just looking at the tv, how things are going on in the surroundings.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Absolutely. Final thoughts, Amelia?
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Yes. I would also like to say buildings are the perfect connection point for sector integration. Whereas you have your building and then you can connect and if you raise a little bit, the view is your cars. How is it connected to mobility? You come and you park. How does the park vehicle to X affect the building consumption? How does your solar panels affect your building consumption? Now with the development of new technology, you can even have wind production and top of a building, once again, depends on the size of the building. Is it your small mansion or my small apartment? We'll see. But these, these also allow to to look not only at thermal energy storage, electricity at mobility more and more. You have like these green walls. How can you make spaces greener? How can they be more inclusive? How can you have you think of a building in terms of. Can it include people with limited capacities, with different backgrounds, with different sensitivities. Sensitivities. And you can. It opens up to all these aspects of complex aspects of life, of urban life and art in this transition. And to really make a difference, they all need to be taken into consideration. Excellent.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Thank you both very much. Emilia and Guillermo, you made some very, very valid points.
Very happy, very interesting discussion. Thank you both very, very much for being here today.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: Thank you for inviting us. It's been a pleasure talking to you, Areti, as always.
[00:38:23] Speaker D: Thanks so much, Areti. Our pleasure.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: You've been listening to the EU Energy Projects podcast, a podcast brought to you by Enlit and Friends. You can find us on Spotify, Apple and the Enlit World website.
Just hit subscribe and you can access our other episodes, too. I'm Areti Daradimo. Thank you for joining us.
