The aim of Energy performance contracting (EPC) is to lower the energy use of a company or a building in the long run. Together with an Energy Service Company (ESCo) a specific timeframe is determined within which the energy savings need to be realised. The energy performance of a building or company is improved while at the same time the return of investment is guaranteed by the energy savings.

AmBIENCE goes beyond the current approach and investigates how the dynamic energy efficiency can be included into EPC modelling. The majority of the current energy performance contracting approaches and concepts consider only the building’s ‘passive’ energy efficiency. This passive energy efficiency takes into account static design parameters, such as level of insulation, compactness, climate areas, etc. of a building, but does not present the dynamic energy efficiency of a building. The idea in AmBIENCe is to move from this static status and dynamically monitor the energy performance of the buildings that are equipped with active control systems such as smart sensors or smart algorithms.

Additionally, energy performance modelling is currently mainly applied in tertiary use and public buildings. As a consequence, there is an untapped potential to apply these practices to a wider range of buildings with enhanced capabilities in building levels. The AmBIENCe project not only proposes an extended dynamic EPC concept and model but also provides the business model for its implementation by valorising the flexibility in the buildings.

These contracts will  support both energy and non-energy services (security & access control, comfort & health, maintenance & building condition, trouble shooting, environmental compliance and information management), together with the possibility to enrich an inherent flexibility from the demand side.

In other words, AmBIENCe also aims at empowering and activating the consumers by providing full transparency on energy consumption and billing as well as by providing to them the flexibility and capacity to act as prosumers.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 847054.