This Building Technology Accelerator (BTA) project aims to support innovative building technologies and construction services to reduce CO2e and create new businesses and jobs in the European building sector.

The dissemination of new and sustainable building technologies into downstream sales channels is currently slow, both for new buildings and renovations. Moreover, it’s hard to stimulate investment in renewable energy when the current price for energy remains low. Research and development of new technology often requires long-term investment and stakeholders are often reluctant to do so due to uncertainty about the Return on Investment (ROI). They prefer investing in new technology with a proven track record. On top of this, potential buyers are often not even aware of new technological solutions. And even if they are, sometimes buyers such as builders lack the necessary expertise to implement new technology.

BTA offers various solutions to make sure that new low-carbon solutions can effectively find their way into the market.

Reduce Time2Marker

To enter the market, new technologies need to be scalable. So they have to be adapted to meet specific climate conditions, remove transformational barriers as well as meet various user needs and preferences. BTA’s objective is to reduce the time needed to conceive, develop and market new sustainable building technologies and services. In order to accomplish this, under the lead of ETH Zurich an Open Innovation Ecosystem, a network of next generation Living Labs and real world test beds, are provided. Extensive scientifically-based field tests that go far beyond case studies are carried out. Once technical, climate and user aspects have been tested and evaluated in the BTA Living Labs, larger field tests take place involving multiple building environments such as integrated neighbourhoods. Within this Ecosystem, key participants and stakeholders involved in technology development closely engage with one another and actively share and discuss results.

Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC is the EU’s main climate innovation initiative. It is Europe’s largest public-private innovation partnership focused on mitigating and adapting to climate change. Climate-KIC consists of companies, academic institutions and the public sector.

Climate-KIC is one of the Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) created in 2010 by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the EU body tasked with creating sustainable European growth while dealing with the global challenges of our time.