In the city, the famous Cabanyal district which had been home to a local fishing community for a long time, has recently been transformed into a testing ground for numerous energy efficiency techniques.

Maguy Soldevila is a former art teacher. Some years ago, she quit the frenzy and the pollution of the French city of Lyon to move into a typical house of the 1960s, in the small village of Sail-sous-Couzan.

Cities, with their concentration of services, economic opportunity, mobility and social interaction, have proved endlessly attractive to humans.

Today´s liberalised markets are focused on short-term return on capital, but energy infrastructure planning should be driven by the objective of climate protection.

Achieving nearly zero energy consuming cities: this is the goal of three large scale district renovation projects. They are currently being tested in Valladolid, Spain, Genoa, Italy and Kartal - Istanbul, Turkey.

To make a building sustainable, taking into account its climatic conditions is key. No better examples than the three showcase buildings under the EU funded  DIRECTION project.

Sustainable buildings partly depend on control strategies to be energy efficient.

Carlos Bárcena, head of R&D Projects at the Spanish construction Company  DRAGADOS .

Energy efficiency has become a key objective in the current context of increasing energy demand, decreasing resources and global warming. Key to efficient energy savings, however, are users' awareness and behaviour.

Sergio Sanz, depty manager of the Energy Division of CARTIF and co-ordinator of the EU funded DIRECTION project talks about the possibility of limiting the costs of very low energy buildings.

A new Directive, dubbed the energy performance of buildings Directive (EPBD), brings the new concept of net -zero energy buildings (NZEB) meaning buildings with a zero energy balance that have a better level of energy performance than the standard energy efficiency requirements in current building codes.

In 2006 the Technical Building Code (CTE) has come into force in Spain. The Code provides for a reduction of energy demand of buildings from architectural design and a reduction of conventional energy consumption through the use of solar thermal water to produce heating and photovoltaic panels to generate electricity.

Reducing the energy requirements of buildings is an absolute priority in Europe. The energy demonstration project SARA has developed several public-access eco-buildings in France, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, UK and Uzbekistan.