After the "oil shock" in the 70’s, Romania has not paid proper attention to the conservation and effiecient use of energy. Romania has remained in the 1990s, from the point of view of the level of thermal insulation of the buildings, at the level of the 1960s in community countries. The endurances to thermal transfer of the opaque areas of closing elements have very low levels (values of max. 1,2 m²K/W, these too very rarely attained).

            In opposition with Romania’s situation, in all countries of Western and Northern Europe, after the energy crisis in the 70s rapid measures were taken to increase the degree of thermal protection and real stimulation of energy saving. Germany has adopted the WSchVO (Warmeschutzverodnung) norm in 1995, in concordance with the UE 93 / 76 directive of the European Council in 1993 concerning "Limitting the CO₂ emissions by means of the efficient use of energy ". This WSchVO norm has imposed the minimum necessary degree of thermal protection for erterior walls at R = 2m²K/W and for the exterior woodwork at 1,43 m²K/W.

          Consequently, even at present the Romanian norm (C107/1-97) stipulates unacceptably low values for the thermal resistance of windows (R_0min= 0,5 m²K/W) and opaque walls (1,4 m²K/W) while in the German norm the ratio of these parameters is 1,43 / 2. In this way the level of thermal protection of the exterior woodwork is close to that of the exterior walls.

During 1985 – 1995 there have been national research programmes concerning precise problems of energetic performance, of methods and means of exploitation of renewable energy sources. Starting with the 1980s there have been pilot experiments carried out, concerning the collecting the use of solar energy in preparing hot water, using solar collectors with different structures. Relatively large surfaces have been set up of about 800 000 square meters of solar collectors for supplying hot water. Unfortunately, these installations went out of order after a few years due to the poor quality of the materials used. Thus, although formally, Romania held at that time the third place in the world as reportedly installed surface, in reality the disparity with European countries is immense. At present there is a pioneering application for the ecologic heating of space in a laboratory at the Professional Training and Perfecting Centre in Constructions Timisoara, partially using the energy collected from the air, water or soil with the help of an Austrian-made heat pump. There are a few achievements in this direction at ICPE and CCPET CEMENERG, including the pilot developed in Agigea, which constitutes a basis for the main objective of the project and for finding original application solutions for the concept proposed by this project in all climatic areas. The pilot developed by ICPE in Agigea constitutes a particular case of application of the proposed concept of renewable energy generator-converter building in an area with great sources of solar and wind energy, including the central unity for the management of the home’s energetic state.

     On an international level, efforts in this field have resulted in concrete elements in research as well as in application and exploitation of generators of energy from renewable sources.

- Project "EULEB - European high quality Low Energy Buildings" concerning 25 buildings in Europe developed in this context. They are spread in all climatic areas of Europe: Finland (Joensuu), Sweden (Kristinehamm and Falkenberg), United Kingdom (Watford, Braintree, Norwich), Germany (Berlin, Biberach, Freiburg and St. augustin), France (lStrasbourg, La Rochelle, St. Clement de Riviere, Frejus), Italy (Florence, Recanati, Empoli), Greece (Athens), Spain (Navarra, Les Planes de Son, Madrid, Sevilla, Canary Islands, Guimar, Tenerife) and Malta (La Valetta). These buildings are administrative, schools and universities, research institutes, social-cultural buildings. The technologies used are applied to thermal insulation, solar energy conversion, lighting, heating, cooling, ventilation, renewable enery sources (solar-photovoltaic, geothermal, biomass, wind, heat pumps, hybrid systems)

-  Concerning the systems of producing energy from renewable sources, mainly based on solar energy, Greece is at first place with a surface of collectors of 3 millioan m² followed by Germany with 2,5 mil. m², Austria with 2,1 mil. m², Norway, Sweden, Spain, Italy.

 -  In Germany and Austria there are extented fields of wind generators up and running;

-    Present buildings have a reduced consumption of energy of about 3 – 4 times lower than those in Romania and there is research under way concerning the development of the new generation of buildings with consumption two or three times lower than the present ones;

         - In Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium the foundation has been laid for the European research of the “minienergy”, “minienergy - P” or „positive house” type

  The proposed research project has, from this point of view, a well-determined goal: synthesis, knowledge, research and innovation in a whole well defined by the notion of „energetically autonomous house using renewable energy”.

The objective of this project is to transform the proposed concept into an instrument for the wide application of ecologic and renewable energy conversion for ensuring the energetic autonomy of buildings and for freeing contemporary society of this burden in the context of the danger represented by the high consumption of classic fuel with effects of the environment and future living conditions.              Comparing from this point of view the national situation with the one in Western Europe, we may notice the obvious difference in tackling this problem, on which depends, according to statistical data, more than 40 % of the total amount of energy necessary annually and destined to supplying people’s everyday life and comfort needs.