According to the latest energy efficiency European directive (EED 2023/1791/EU), the expected energy renovation rate of at least 3% of the buildings’ floor area each year towards nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEBs) is extended to include public buildings not only of the central government (as per the first EED 2012/27/EU) but also of regional and local authorities. This poses a great challenge, especially for Municipalities that often manage large building stocks with high energy demands. In response to this challenge, this paper presents the application of the so-called “typology approach” for conducting public buildings’ energy renovation plans at the local level. A computational survey is initially introduced to decide the optimal set of building-stock clustering criteria among all possible combinations, involving the minimization of the RMSE index regarding the primary energy consumption of each building. For a representative building from each identified typology, the key performance indicators (KPIs) are computed for alternative energy-upgrading scenarios. Exploiting the IMPULSE Interreg-MED project tools, the KPIs from each representative building are at first extrapolated to all buildings of the examined stock and, finally, a gradual energy renovation plan is automatically produced based on user-defined decision parameters including the required annual renovation rate. The methodology is applied for the case of the Municipality of Hersonissos in Greece. For the specific 44-buildings’ stock it was found that the optimal clustering set included four criteria, building use, construction year, heating, and a cooling system, leading to 15 building typologies. Finally, assuming a 7% renovation rate per year, a 12-year gradual renovation (nZEB transformation) plan is obtained foreseeing an 85% CO₂ emissions’ reduction.

In view of the European Union’s strategy on hydrogen for decarbonization and buildings’ decarbonization targets, the use of hydrogen in buildings is expected in the future. Backup power in buildings is usually provided with diesel generators (DGs). In this study, the use of a hydrogen fuel cell (HFC) power supply backup system is studied. Its operation is compared to a DG and a techno-economic analysis of the latter’s replacement with an HFC is conducted by calculating relevant key performance indicators (KPIs). The developed approach is presented in a case study on a school building in Greece. Based on the school’s electricity loads, which are calculated with a dynamic energy simulation and power shortages scenarios, the backup system’s characteristics are defined, and the relevant KPIs are calculated. It was found that the HFC system can reduce the annual CO₂ emissions by up to 400 kg and has a lower annual operation cost than a DG. However, due to its high investment cost, its levelized cost of electricity is higher, and the replacement of an existing DG is unviable in the current market situation. The techno-economic study reveals that subsidies of around 58–89% are required to foster the deployment of HFC backup systems in buildings.

The European Union, through the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive, has been establishing requirements and expectations regarding energy savings and efficiency in buildings. Educational buildings comprise a significant part of public buildings that should lead the way in the energy retrofitting of existing building stock. The present study aims to create intelligent school complexes that will be energy upgraded to meet the need for reduced energy consumption in the public sector in order to comply with EU guidelines, optimize the sense of comfort, introduce the renewable energy and enhance sustainable mobility by creating electric charging stations for vehicles. Retrofitting approaches consider thermal insulation of the building envelope, replacement of heating and lighting system with more efficient ones and installation of building management system for the creation of an electronic application that will monitor the energy status of the building in real time and will train users in the proper use of new energy management technologies from RES. The overall objective of the project is to create Intelligent Buildings Standards of Nearly Zero Consumption which promote an overall ecological character of public buildings demonstrating their social role.

The current research presents a practical approach to assess energy performance and thermal comfort in households through monitoring campaigns. The campaigns are conducted in a Greek city, involving the installation of low-intrusive recording devices for hourly electricity consumption, indoor temperature, and relative humidity in different residences in winter and summer periods. The recorded indoor environmental conditions are initially compiled to the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) index, followed by the formulation of databases of hourly electricity consumption, PMV and local outdoor climate conditions retrieved by an official source of meteorological conditions. A special algorithm for database processing was developed which takes into account the eligibility of data series, i.e., only the ones corresponding to non-zero electricity consumption are treated as eligible. First, the sequential temporal progress of energy consumption and thermal comfort is produced towards the assessment of energy-use intensity and thermal comfort patterns. Secondly, through summing of the electricity consumption within 0.5-step PMV intervals, under three outdoor temperature intervals with approximately the same number of eligible measurements, reliable interrelations of energy consumption and PMV are obtained even for residences with limited amount of measured data. It is revealed that the weekly electricity consumption ranged within 0.15–3.59 kWh/m² for the winter cases and within 0.29–1.72 kWh/m² for the summer cases. The acceptable range of −1 ≤ PMV ≤ 1 interval holds an occurrence frequency from 69.46% to 93.39% and from 37.94% to 70.31% for the winter and summer examined cases, respectively. Less resistance to discomfort conditions is observed at most of the summer examined households exhibiting the electricity peak within the 1 ≤ PMV ≤ 1.5 interval, contrary to the winter cases for which the electricity peak occurred within the −1 ≤ PMV ≤ −0.5 interval. The study provides graphical relationships of PMV and electricity consumption under various outdoor temperatures paving the way for correlating thermal comfort and energy consumption.

Greece’s National Climate Law, enacted under L. 4936, mandates the development of Municipal Emission Reduction Plans (MERPs) by local authorities. Publicly available MERP procurement data contains valuable information that can be utilized to provide an overview and insights into MERP procurement and development. The main objective of this study is to perform a comparative analysis of Greek MERP procurement data and identify patterns in the contract cost estimation of mitigation action plans in Greek municipalities. For this purpose, MERP procurement data was collected from the official procurement register, KIMDIS, and subsequently analyzed through a bivariate approach comparing the collected data with selected independent variables. The results are stratified by population range and official municipal classification to enable comparison between different sizes and types of municipalities. The results indicate that a total of 44% of municipalities in Greece procured their MERP, with significant delays in adherence to official deadlines and only after the MERP became a prerequisite for funding-related matters. Additionally, the procurement process was highly characterized by single bidding. Average contract duration ranged from 110 to 220 days, with an average contract value between EUR 18,000 and EUR 33,000. The difference between tender budget and contract value averaged between 0 and 5%.

To pave the way towards buildings’ decarbonization in the context of the European Union’s (EU) policy, the methodology of cost-optimality assessment based on regulation 244/2012/EU is a useful tool to explore and foster the application of energy technologies in buildings. Meanwhile, the fostering of concentrated solar power is included in the EU solar energy strategy. In this study, the cost-optimal methodology is employed for the techno-economic assessment of the integration of a novel solar, multi-purpose energy technology, namely a parabolic trough collector-based trigeneration system, in two building types with different characteristics, namely an office and a hospital, in Greece, thus allowing the evaluation of the cost-optimal system design and the impact of the building type on the system’s techno-economic performance. Reference buildings are defined and their energy demand is calculated through dynamic energy simulations. The trigeneration system’s performance for different design scenarios is then parametrically investigated using a simulation model. For each scenario, energy, environmental and economic indicators are calculated and the cost-optimal designs are extracted. In the cost-optimal implementation, the system covered 18.19–36.39% and 3.58–15.71% of the heating and cooling demand, respectively, while the reduction of the primary energy consumption and emissions was estimated at 10–14% and 10–16%, respectively. However, differences between the buildings related to the operation schedule and the loads led to the implementation of the system being economically more attractive in the hospital, while for the office, financial support is necessary for a viable investment.