Building conversations up with... Joana Fernandes, Coordinator of ADENE’s technical projects unit at the Strategy, Policies and Projects Department.
Joana Fernandes is an energy policy and sustainability expert with nearly 20 years of experience in international and European cooperation projects, working at the intersection of energy efficiency, building performance and renewable technologies. Her background in Environmental Engineering from IST (Technical University of Lisbon), complemented by a master’s in engineering and technology management and postgraduate studies in Energy Efficiency, Sustainable Energy Systems and Public Policies Evaluation, reflects a continuous commitment to expanding her expertise across technical, policy and governance dimensions.
Since 2013, she has worked with ADENE, the Portuguese National Energy Agency, as project manager for several EU-funded initiatives. ADENE acts as the mobilising agent for the energy transition in Portugal and manages, among other instruments, the Building Energy Certification System, specialised training through the ADENE Academy, and programmes that promote energy efficiency, renewables, water efficiency and efficient mobility.
Joana currently coordinates ADENE’s technical projects unit, overseeing the portfolio of EU projects in the agency’s core areas: energy efficiency, renewable energy, consumers and energy poverty, water efficiency, circular economy and mobility. Within ADENE and European initiatives such as the LIFE Plan4COLD project, she promotes integrated approaches to sustainable heating and cooling in buildings and the urban environment, supporting municipalities in Southern Europe in developing local heating and cooling plans and strengthening climate resilience. Through this work, she engages actively with European networks, sharing practical knowledge, project results and policy-relevant insights with the wider community of building sector professionals.
BUILD UP (BUP): As cooling demand increases across Europe, Plan4COLD focuses on supporting Southern European municipalities in developing sustainable local heating and cooling plans. Based on this work, what are the most effective strategies for reducing cooling demand in existing buildings while maintaining indoor thermal comfort?
Joana Fernandes (JF): Plan4COLD’s strategy is based on an integrated approach, looking at the urban environment, the regeneration of public outdoor spaces, as well as buildings and citizens’ behaviour. From Plan4COLD’s perspective, this integrated approach is essential to effectively reduce cooling needs. The key challenge is to prevent cities from overheating by limiting heat accumulation and retention, which affects both urban spaces and surrounding buildings.
Within the Plan4COLD context, the goal is not simply to increase cooling capacity, but to reduce the need for cooling in the first place, using solutions that are more resilient to extreme heat and improve energy efficiency. This is particularly important in Southern European cities, where heat stress is expected to intensify in the coming years.
That said, the most effective strategies for reducing cooling demand in existing buildings should be a balanced combination of passive and active measures. Passive measures deal with the building envelope, focusing on reducing heat gains through design. Key actions include improving insulation where technically appropriate, both at roof and façade level, external solar shading, efficient windows, night-time natural ventilation and green and reflective surfaces, to name a few. Active measures focus on the building operation and should prioritise the appropriate selection of technologies and equipment, favouring the most energy-efficient equipment and renewable energy-based solutions whenever possible. Smart controls should also be considered to adjust building operation to actual occupancy and occupants’ thermal needs.
BUP: Despite growing awareness of overheating risks and the greater attention given to climate resilience in the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), cooling often remains less developed than heating in local energy planning. In your experience, what are the main barriers preventing municipalities from giving cooling the same strategic attention as heating?
JF: Heating planning has a long history, especially in Central and Northern Europe where heating needs are the bulk of energy demand in residential buildings. Cooling is increasingly becoming a topic, mostly in Southern Europe, where heating does not have the same relevance as in Central and Northern Europe, and as heat waves become more frequent and intense, and the average temperatures rise year by year.
One of the main barriers to addressing cooling as a strategic topic is that cooling has historically been treated as a technical or individual building issue, rather than a strategic part of local energy planning. Several municipalities still lack detailed data on heating and cooling needs, actual cooling demand, and the energy consumption required to meet these needs, making it harder to define priorities and select cost-effective measures.
Even at a national level, in most cases the granularity of the available data is insufficient to effectively support municipalities’ planning process. Following the Energy Efficiency Directive, Article 25(1), it is essential to provide a thorough and detailed assessment of the heating and cooling sector that covers all the national territory and provides a comprehensive and common playing field for the cities to plan and act at this level.
Another barrier is institutional fragmentation. Cooling addresses energy, urban planning, public health, climate adaptation, and building management, but these areas are often handled separately. Even with the revised EPBD and growing attention to overheating, cooling still tends to receive less strategic attention than heating.
BUP: What building characteristics or typologies (e.g. residential, schools, public buildings) emerged as the highest priorities for cooling interventions in Southern European cities?
JF: The priority should be to act on existing buildings and urban spaces, retrofit them to improve energy performance and ensure that the new construction complies with the most recent directives and regulations and, ideally, goes a step further towards the construction of zero-emission buildings.
In Southern European cities, the highest priorities for cooling interventions should address the needs of vulnerable citizens, namely elderly people who are less resilient to extreme heat events, making it essential to tackle care homes and long-term care facilities. Schools should also be a priority, not only because they combine high occupancy with long exposure times, but also because well-communicated cooling measures can have a strong replication effect within the school community. On the residential side, and focusing on the EPBD, buildings with poor thermal performance, strong solar exposure, and limited natural ventilation should also be high-priority targets for retrofit. Public buildings should also be prioritised, again not only due to the combination of high occupancy, long exposure times, and vulnerability to overheating but because these buildings can be directly renovated by public entities, national, regional or local authorities, and the interventions can have a wider impact, if properly communicated to the occupants of the buildings and to the public, acting also as pilot cases that can inspire the private sector to pursue similar interventions.
BUP: Passive cooling measures, such as solar shading, natural ventilation, cool roofs, and green infrastructure, are increasingly recognised as a cost-effective way to improve thermal comfort while limiting energy demand. How is the Plan4COLD helping municipalities incorporate these solutions into their local sustainable heating and cooling plans?
JF: Plan4COLD helps municipalities incorporate passive cooling solutions by translating technical principles into practical local planning methods. The project has developed a Guideline to support the definition of Sustainable Local Heating and Cooling Plans (SLHCP) and organises capacity-building sessions for local authorities to reinforce their know-how and competencies on this topic. The Guidelines are structured as a five-phase methodology, tackling all the points needed to be considered. These phases are: (1) Prepare the ground, (2) Baseline assessment, (3) SLHCP strategy and development, (4) Roadmap and implementation, and (5) Monitoring of the SLHCP.
The first phase emphasises political commitment, dedicated governance structures, and early engagement of stakeholders and citizens, as preconditions for credible and durable strategies. It requires an extensive review of the context to identify synergies and ensure consistency across governance levels. The second one is the data collection phase, which allows an evaluation of where the heating and cooling system stands, identifying the energy demand, supply and emissions inventory, and assessing climate risks and vulnerabilities such as energy poverty.
During the third phase, the SLHCP strategy endorses an integrated perspective focusing on three dimensions: urban planning, buildings and infrastructure, and behaviour change. The guiding principle is 'energy efficiency first': reduce heating and cooling needs, serve remaining needs more efficiently, and decarbonise supply through renewable energy. In this phase, a portfolio of measures is assessed and evaluated, building the vision for the decarbonisation of the local heating and cooling system. The fourth phase provides a governance-oriented framework, translating the vision and measures into a roadmap, including responsibilities, timeline, and budget. This results in a locally anchored portfolio of measures, from planning instruments to regulatory and financial incentives and enabling actions that activate all the dimensions. In the fifth phase, monitoring, the KPIs are defined as well as the timing of the feedback loops to assess progress, impacts and shortcomings and periodically update the SLHCP.
The added value of this methodology is that these measures are not left as isolated best practices but are embedded into the SLHCP, which makes it easier for municipalities to link them to regulations, renovation programmes, and investment priorities, strengthening multi-level governance and accelerating the energy transition.
BUP: Can you share examples from the pilot cities where building-level interventions have been successfully combined with urban-scale measures, such as green infrastructure or actions to mitigate the urban heat island effect? What lessons could other municipalities draw from these experiences?
JF: Plan4COLD is working with 17 cities in Portugal, Italy and Greece and has two follower cities in Spain and Croatia. The development of the plans is still at an early stage, and the goal is to have the first drafts in May next year. All the cities have established a dedicated governance structure, responsible for the definition of the local heating and cooling plan, and have already gathered a local community of practice, stakeholders to whom heating and cooling is relevant, and that can contribute to the plan’s definition with concerns, challenges, solutions, synergies, etc. They have also completed the first task, which is the gathering of data, dispersed through the municipalities’ different departments, regional and national sources, and even private stakeholders, and are now establishing the city’s baseline.
The main lessons so far are that an integrated approach is essential, and that local heating and cooling plans are an opportunity to define a vision and establish a roadmap for heating and cooling decarbonisation. The issue is broader than it may initially seem: the focus should be on thermal comfort, which cannot be achieved through technology alone. It requires a combination of urban planning and regeneration, building design and retrofit, and local governance. Furthermore, cities should take this opportunity to continue to lead by example and to this end, the plans, and particularly the plans for Southern European cities, should highlight the initiatives that are available for local authorities to adopt and implement. Municipalities can lead the implementation of these plans through enabling actions, stakeholder engagement and partnerships. Key initiatives include promoting energy audits across municipal building stock, implementing renovation projects, providing technical support and incentives to modernise heating and cooling appliances, and setting ambitious standards for new urban development areas and buildings.
BUP: What recommendations would you give municipalities that are only beginning to develop cooling strategies?
JF: For municipalities that are just beginning to develop local heating and cooling plans the first step is to acknowledge the opportunity and establish a holistic and integrated approach that recognises that the urban planning dimension needs to be considered for heating and cooling measures to be effective. The second step is to secure political commitment to the plan’s definition and implementation, establishing a clear governance structure from the start. The third step is to ensure alignment with the already established strategies, targets and policies. Several cities are signatories of the Covenant of Mayors and have subscribed to other Sustainability initiatives, therefore most likely some of the measures already established have an impact on heating and cooling demand. Thus, it is essential to acknowledge this and define the plan to fill in the gaps and meet the targets established.
Following this, the recommendation is to establish a solid diagnosis, which characterises heating and cooling demand and consumption, but also maps heat island spots and overheating risks, priority intervention buildings, vulnerable populations, and connects this information with existing climate, energy, and urban planning frameworks. The plan should establish a roadmap for its implementation that needs to be aligned with the city’s vision and should be implemented in phases, including short-term actions like shading, ventilation, and awareness-raising, while longer-term measures include building refurbishment, regulatory updates, and integration with climate adaptation policies. The plan should be dynamic, and, to this end, it is essential to monitor its impact and revise it periodically to ensure it meets the city’s needs.
Finally, municipalities should work in networks, learn and exchange with each other and benefit from European projects such as LIFE-CET Plan4COLD, which provide methods, resources, examples, and peer learning for more effective and ground-based initiatives.
