R2CITIES, the Smart City project with which our city began the road towards efficiency and sustainability, has come to an end. Five years of project, and some more until it materialized, have been necessary to design, implement and evaluate the energy rehabilitation...

In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind... an ingenious knight glimpses on the horizon old windmills. Believing that they were giants, he tries to defeat them with the help of his squire and the available weapons of the time. Do...

It is weekend. Dinner with friends at home and the dishwasher is damaged. After washing the dishes by hand, I set out a question: ‘what do you value most when buying a dishwasher? This is one of the situations where it is clear that the dishwasher exists because there...

For some years, we have been listening to talking about smart cities, more sustainable environments… but, in some cases we do not know what kind of strategies could do our city to turn into one of them. When we refer to Smart City, we talk about cities concerned with...

I try to go there every time I can, to the FASA-Delicias district, and it still amazes me that, at the end, we have been able to make a small part of Valladolid a better neighbourhood for the people living there. Most times I don’t stop there, due to lack of time. But...

Oceans have become plastic soups and garbage patch, where 8 millions of tonnes of plastic are discharged every year and consequently remains floating in the seas, moreover tonnes of this material are accumulated in dumps. Plastic gets to forests, rivers and are found...

Retrofitting actions at Torrelago (Spain) district are coming to an end and a new time for reflection, analysis and assessment is about to start. CITyFiED is at the heart of Laguna de Duero (Valladolid, Spain) and has established the foundations towards a more...

Anti-pollution measures, speed limits, parking restrictions, even the grey sky colour, and very, very alarming data. These are the consequences of the circulation of our cars in big cities. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA), more than 13% of the...

According to the United Nations, in 2014 more than half of the world’s population was living in urban areas and two third of the world’s population will be living in an urban area by 2050 being Europe the most urbanized continent (URBACT, 2015). The forecast for 2050...

Even though the term Geographic Information System (GIS) is well-known, it is possible that many of you don’t know what applications it might have or its relevance in the energy field. Put in short, GIS (or SIG, in Spanish) are all software in charge of the treatment...

That the self-consumption is a real option and that is going to grow little by little is evident. But are we really prepared? The next few lines describe some steps to establish it in our homes. In the subject of self-consumption there is a concept that we must never...

Urban mobility is paramount to address cities’ sustainable regeneration due to the number of issues that derive from a non-sustainable and non-efficient urban transport strategy. Urban transport represents almost a quarter of all the EU transport CO2 emissions....

I have tried my best to avoid starting this post with the awarded as the most-used-ever sentence in this sort of texts that states that “buildings account for a 40% of the energy consumption and the 36% of the GHG emissions” but the fact is that it is good starting...

'Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another'. This is the most commonly known formulation of the First Principle of Thermodynamics. However, we often forget that energy is degraded to a greater or lesser extent when it...

This question is easy to ask, but very difficult to answer. If a person who does not know about self-consumption is informed, explaining that basically consists of putting a solar photovoltaic installation in your house and to use the energy that the sun gives us to...

One of the most important challenges that our society must face is how to transform our cities into more accessible, sustainable and efficient places. Our cities are, at this moment, in the very initial stages of this transformation, trying to get adapted to the new...

Have you ever wondered how a R&D project arises? How is it possible, for example, to be able to apply a photocatalytic treatment in the heart of a big city like Madrid? Ensuring respect of the environment through R&D requires a detailed plan of action, which...

“Cities are no more than ecosystems that consume resources and transform them to produce outputs as services, goods or waste” says Richard Rogers in his book “Cities for a Small Planet”. Certainly, sustainability of these complex ecosystems depends on our capability...

In the European Commission, there is a clear interest in improving the energy and environmental conditions of the building sector, and to reduce the impact of this sector in terms of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. That interest is materialized in funding...

The Taoist philosophy defines through the Ying and Yang duality, that has everything that exists in the universe, so that there are always two antagonistic and complementary forces that need each other. You can hardly appreciate the value of the Peace without the...

'Or from how to cultivate the energy consciousness of the tomorrow’s citizens through the education of today’s children' Working in a technological centre where is made R & D & i is far from being the case of living in a futuristic bubble far away from the...

More than 40% of the residential buildings in Europe are older than 50 years and subsequently they have a large potential for energy savings. The European Commission is aware of the need of a renovation work as well as the benefits that this activity can bring to the...

Six more aspects to know everything about Energy Performance Certificates Even though at first sight Energy Performance Certificates required nowadays when selling or renting a property might seem a burden for the owner; they are a huge source of information for the...

Shopping centres have been invented in the 1920’s in the United States and represent the modern version of a historical market place with their collection of independent retail stores, services, and parking area. Over the whole of Europe there are thousands of retail...

Water is the most abundant substance in the human body as much as on Earth and is also essential for the survival of all known forms of life. And despite its importance, every day more voices warn of the dangers looming on such a "precious element." For example, the...

Normally the idea that the average citizen has about the savings in the energy bill,  depending on the equipment installed, is centred around the sacrifice of the personal welfare (lowering a bit the temperature at home in winter and rising in summer) or making...

The title might suggest a classical scenario inside a horror movie: some people, typically a group of teenagers, enter inside a derelict house that seems to be alive, and is the cause of many troubles that, depending on the script, could end up dooming them all.In the...