Project Keywords: Energy Efficiency | Building Performance | Building Maintenance and Renovation | Urban Rehabilitation | Urban Policies | Urban-Scale Building Energy Modeling.
Project results
The project results were presented at a public event on March 26, 2025:
URBEM Project
Urban Reference Buildings for Energy Modelling
Project of national interest (PRIN), funded by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR), in which 10 Italian Universities participate.
The project
Urban Reference Building for Energy Modelling (URBEM), a project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) for the creation of a national database of building archetypes (reference buildings)
The building database
The project team will create a national database for reference buildings to be used with UBEM tools.
The project partners
5 promoting universities and 5 associate universities will carry out the data collection and analysis work for the creation of the database
Why does URBEM concern you?
If you are an operator in the sector, DSO, energy distributor, condominium administrator, facility manager, or owner of a building stock, you can collaborate with us.
The URBEM project researchers will be able to help you analyze your energy and/or building database in order to give more value to your business or assets. At the same time, you will be able to contribute, with the data at your disposal, to a better description of the reference buildings of the Italian real estate stock, making the project outputs more suitable for studies and real applications such as:
The URBEM project researchers will be able to help you analyze your energy and/or building database in order to give more value to your business or assets. At the same time, you will be able to contribute, with the data at your disposal, to a better description of the reference buildings of the Italian real estate stock, making the project outputs more suitable for studies and real applications such as:
- Quantify and optimize the energy use of buildings, neighborhoods and cities
- Quantify and decrease the carbon footprint of buildings, neighborhoods and cities
- Evaluate the resilience of real estate assets to climate change
- Propose medium and large-scale policies for the energy requalification of real estate assets
- Predict the impact on energy networks of substantial energy requalification interventions
- Predict the impact on energy networks of new energy management schemes, such as renewable energy communities and collective self-consumption
- Spread awareness of energy and environmental issues and propose actions within everyone’s reach for the better management of buildings, neighborhoods and cities and much more.
What are you waiting for? Contact us!
Context
The European Union has committed to leading the world in climate action, as it faces record levels of emissions that have not abated despite the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this commitment, the EU has set a target to reduce its climate-changing emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels by 2030 (“Fit for 55” Climate Package) and become the first “climate-neutral” continent by 2050. Italy, too, has pledged to reduce its emissions in the tertiary, transport, and civil sectors by 35% by 2030 (PNIEC).
Given that buildings account for about 36% of climate-changing emissions and 40% of energy end use in the EU, it is essential that any project to decarbonize the economy includes practical solutions for
redeveloping and managing real estate assets. Achieving this requires a coordinated framework of energy policies, economic incentives, and implementation tools, particularly at the urban level, where the majority of building stock is located.
To this end, it is vital to classify, study, and create a flexible database of reference buildings to serve as the basis for sustainable energy policies. Technical and economic simulations should rely on this database to ensure that energy policies are effective and environmentally friendly.
URBEM will provide a database of reference buildings
The project will fill the current knowledge gap by providing a national database for reference buildings for use with Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) tools.
The building database
The national database of reference buildings to be used with UBEM (Urban Building Energy Modeling) tools covers the following building uses:
The referents of the 10 involved Universities
Politecnico di Milano
Principal Investigator (PI)
Referent of Unit of Research 1
Politecnico di Torino
Referent of Unit of Research 2
Università di Padova
Referent of Unit of Research 3
Università di Catania
Referent of Unit of Research 4
Università di Roma La Sapienza
Referent of Unit of Research 5
Università degli studi di Firenze
Università di Pavia
Università Iuav di Venezia
Università della Calabria
Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”
The partner Universities of the project
Partners
Promoting Universities
Associated Partners
