NewBEE Technology Wiki

The NewBEE Technology Wiki provides access to information on refurbishment to building owners and professionals. It has been developed in the context of the research project NewBEE - Novel Business model generator for Energy Efficiency in construction and retrofitting. The NewBEE wiki provides content that aims to support the main goal of the NewBEE project: “strengthen collaboration in the retrofitting value network”.

The focus in this context is to support three specific situations that typically occur in a construction project or in strategic planning: support for management staff who strive to improve the business model of their company, support for owners looking for independent information on refurbishment, and finally use of the wiki during the planning stage of a refurbishment project. Project managers can explain basic aspects of a retrofitting project to their clients by means of the information available in the NewBEE Technology Wiki.

The main types of information provided in the NewBEE Technology Wiki are:
 * Building typology
 * Available technologies for energy refurbishment
 * Financial models and opportunities
 * Performance based business models
 * Methods and standards for energy and cost saving calculation
 * Potential savings

Usage and membership
In its current state, the NewBEE Technology Wiki exists as a prototype to show the potential of using Semantic MediaWiki as a collaborative technology repository. Further development, e.g. to implement visualisation of information on relevant technologies, are being developed by Fraunhofer IAO, Competence Center R&D Management and Karlsruhe Institut für Technologie, AIFB, as well as others in the German research project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (bmbf), which deals with the organisation of technology monitoring in industrial companies and improved support through semantic IT tools. It is envisioned that the NewBEE Technology Wiki will be further developed and opened up to a wider community interest in a continuously updated repository of building technologies and business models.

Usage of SMW tools
Semantic MediaWiki is used for the Technology Repository as a part of the overall NewBEE platform. Extensions are used for the visualisation of information and are further developed at the moment to better respond to the need to show integrated evaluation results in technology portfolios and a technology radar system. Overall, Semantic MediaWiki has supplied both the required functionality as well as the required support of decentralised collaboration in the project and in building retrofitting projects.