Before air conditioning, buildings in hot countries were designed to keep their inhabitants cool. But over time technical solutions have replaced architectural prowess. Technology keeps temperatures down, but pushes up greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change
Before air conditioning, buildings in hot countries were designed to keep their inhabitants cool. But over time technical solutions have replaced architectural prowess. Technology keeps temperatures down, but pushes up greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change.
The Louvre in Abu Dhabi, daughter of its celebrated mother museum in Paris, is itself a work of modern art and proof that style and energy efficiency can go hand in hand. Passive design techniques inspired by traditional regional architecture create a building that is beautiful and climate-friendly. A dome acts as a shading canopy to protect the outdoor plaza and lower buildings from the sun, cooling visitors indoors and outdoors without the need for fossil fuel guzzling air conditioning
PHOTO Agnieszka Kowalczyk
In an interview with FORESIGHT, Dominique Ristori, Director General for Energy in the European Commission, explains why Europe’s heating system is too old and dirty
Applying large heat pumps in industry is in its early days, but interest is increasing
A UK start-up believes its rooftop solar photovoltaic thermal technology can help decarbonise buildings
Qarnot, a small company based outside Paris, France, is developing computing products that generate heat close to the end user
Solar photovoltaic has clear potential to help decarbonise cooling and, in some climates, contribute significantly to the energy transition in heating
Using waste heat from large data centres to heat homes and offices may seem like a no-brainer, but making a business case for getting heat from out-of-town data centres to urban areas at a correct temperature is complicated and costly
The Netherlands faces an unprecedented transformation as it aims in the next 30 years to switch off its gas supplies in favour of cleaner fuels
Geothermal heating has plenty of potential as a long-term solution to decarbonise heating and cooling systems
Research by Siemens shows the way forward to make district heating in Denmark run on clean energy sources
California’s policies on the decarbonisation of buildings can become a model of what works in a thriving economy and what measures should be adopted more broadly in the US and beyond
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