Tech 4U: transition in climate, energy and health for urban areas: a strategy towards a surplus energy Heijmans ONE community

Are the goals set by the European Union for 2020, or the recent Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris, for new buildings or renovation of old buildings enough to tackle the built environment’s impact on climate change? In order to reach an energy neutral built environment, new and renovated buildings could produce more energy than they consume to compensate for existing buildings for which there are no renovation plans. Such an approach should produce high margins for built environment enterprises, either with the energy service company (ESCO) approach, or by higher selling prices, due to the reduced life cycle costs of their buildings. The energy transition towards sustainability could be achieved faster. Society would also benefit by actively participating in transition towards sustainability, by enabling energy-efficient houses to reach positive energy margins by adapting their energy consuming behaviour.
But how can built environment enterprises design and build surplus energy buildings? Which new technologies would fit and provide added value to building development projects? Would the design for surplus energy built environments at community level be more socially and financially attractive? To answer these questions, in this study a strategy towards the design of a surplus energy built environment has been developed by using the communities of Heijmans ONE residences as a case study. In addition, the design results of this applied research have been utilized for the development of business plans for commercial exploitation by Heijmans N.V.