It's a brand new sector: the first steps date back to 2012. Today energy crowdfunding is a way of financing solar panel or wind turbine projects.

In the wake of the Brussels bombings, the French blogger Francis Pisani addressed the quandaries of modern, connected European cities facing terrorist threats .

In the late 1980s, the German-born chemist Michael Grätzel literally tied his name to an invention that is hailed as a  revolution in renewable energy .

“History will remember this day,” said Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, moments after the green-topped gavel, symbol of the Paris talks, was dropped on what is considered the most ambitious deal on climate change that the world has ever seen.

European homeowners remain resistant to undertaking efficiency measures. Widespread incentives, regulations and policies concerning energy efficiency are making modest gains. In the U.K.

Traditionally our electricity grids were designed to move power from large nuclear and fossil fuel power plants to consumers, but renewable energy will see changes to allow smaller power generation from wind and solar to be hooked up to the grid.

“The building sector is responsible for more than 30% of global energy demand and round about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions”, says Peter Graham from the Global Buildings Performance Network in Paris.

In Europe, households are responsible for 32% of greenhouse gas emissions and 42% of energy. Cement production alone contributes to 5% of manmade CO 2 emissions .

The worldwide energy consumption of buildings is expected to grow by 45% from 2002 to 2025, according to the SMART 2020 study carried out by the international NGO The Climate Group.

Retroffiting older buildings has become an industry in its own right in Europe. To compete, various players need to innovate.

To prevent energy loss and improve the management of solar power plants scientists of the European research project MACC II in France are now developing a 5-day forecast to predict the movements of desert dust and thus will be able to inform power plant managers beforehand.

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.

Householders do not always know how much energy they consume. To help improve their awareness, the EnergyLife app was developed through BeAware , a EU funded project, led by the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), in Finland.

Liberalising the heat market is, in theory, possible. It would operate in the same way that enables owners of domestic-scale wind turbines, or any other electricity producer, to sell surplus into the grid and draw power from the network.

In the European funded project FIBLYS (or FIB anaLYSis) three industry and four research partners from Czech Republic, France, Germany and Switzerland have created a multi-nano tool named FIBLYS .

A significant challenge for researchers in the field of rechargeable batteries is to construct batteries which can be charged and discharged quickly with only minimal energy capacity loss .

Together the engineers worked on the fuel cell propulsion system by upgrading the air supply, integrating a humidification system, redesigning the hydrogen supply line and developing a hydrogen sensor concept.

Geothermal energy has always been used by man, but it wasn’t until the late 19th century that geothermal energy was “rediscovered” and used on an industrial scale.

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.

One good way of helping the environment is to put what we call ‘solar panels’ onto the roofs of buildings. When the sun is shining these panels trap the rays and turn it into electricity and heat.