CIT Nimbus researchers secure €1.5m funding

Researchers at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) have landed a double-funding boost to help advance their work in developing smarter, energy-efficient homes.

Two teams of Irish and international researchers at CIT’s Nimbus Centre secured a combined €1.5m in funding from the EU’s research and innovation fund, Horizon 2020.

Nimbus Centre head Dr Dirk Pesch heralded the funding as a major development for research here that could have wide-ranging impacts.

“This is hugely positive achievement for Irish research, simultaneously elevating the impact of Ireland on the European Energy stage and assisting jobs, education and innovation at home.

“The funding will continue to strengthen the research that is happening in Nimbus, and CIT, on the energy-efficient buildings topic,” he said.

The first successful project is Tools for Continuous Building Performance Auditing. Susan Rea, Alan McGibney and their team will develop tools and services to support continuous energy performance.

The second project led by Christian Beder with Juan Manuel Escano and Niel Canty will optimise building energy control mechanisms, and implement automatic fault-detection and equipment maintenance.

The research will help improve Europe’s energy efficiency, reducing the gap between predicted and actual energy performances in buildings thereby improving carbon emissions.

Several Irish and other European academic and industry partners are involved in the research including Tyndall National Institute.

Running from 2014 to 2020 with a budget of just over €70bn, Horizon 2020 is the EU’s programme for research and innovation aimed at driving growth and jobs.