News
General Assembly in Bolzano, Italy

HAPPENING celebrates its first year with ambitious and positive results in the testing phase of the developed technology

The General Assembly agreed to move on to the next phase, focusing on the application of the technology in pilot projects in Spain, Italy and Austria.

HAPPENING Consortium partners gathered in Bolzano (Italy) to celebrate our 1st anniversary of the project in the 2nd General Assembly, where we had the opportunity to learn about the progress of each Work Package, as well as to visit in situ the facilities where the technology proposed in the project is being developed. 

This technology, based on the creation of decentralised heat pumps that are easy to install, adaptable to all types of buildings and accessible to any resident, in order to make their buildings more sustainable in terms of energy, is currently in the testing phase, having achieved the following indicators to date: 

  • The size 400 and 600 of the micro HPs have been tested to validate the components to go forward in the design to be ready with all the unit for the field test. 
  • Cooling and heating conditions were tested with the aim of reaching the declared capacities and the declared COP / EER 
  • Definition of the system conceptual scheme, based on all the boundary conditions, and the preliminary component sizing and selection. 
  • Verification performance via laboratory tests on the peristaltic pump used for the condensate reinjection kit (required for cooling mode) 

These achievements, especially those developed in the laboratory, could be tested by the Consortium members in situ as the agenda of the General Assembly included visits to the EURAC and INNOVA laboratories, especially useful to understand the roadmap of these two partners when testing the HAPPENING technology. 

Visit to EURAC Research

Next steps, pilot projects releases

This General Assembly verified that the pilot cases envisaged in the project will start in spring 2022, being the first of the locations Ispaster (Spain), where the first of the implementations is expected to take place. Therefore, a phase of analysis of the building and its current situation has been initiated, where some highlights are related to a variety of residents, from families of 4 members with regular use to a single person with low use. They are interested as well in (1) using no fossil fuels in the dwellings and producing renewable energy by means of PV panels and (2) they are also interested in obtaining savings on their energy bills and in having higher level of comfort at home (faster heating, additional possibility of getting cooling…).

Also, other aspects of HAPPENING were addressed by the Consortium members such as the design of the demos or the detailed implementation plan thanks to the exhaustive identification of the demo buildings and their requirements and constraints, technical constraints (existing equipment, available room, etc.), regulatory / legal issues (procedures for installation works, etc.), and social aspects related to the communication with residents.