Eline Himpe
Eline Himpe (°1988) graduated as engineer-architect in 2011. Her master dissertation was part of a diptych ‘Life cycle energy consumption of zero-energy houses: impact of the building envelope and of the technical installations’, that was supervised by Ghent University and VITO.
By the end of 2011 she joined the Building Physics research group, with research on the performance assessment of zero-carbon dwellings, buildings and neighbourhoods in context of the European project ECO-Life. Her research embraces various topics: energy performance of district heating grids, the definition, design and assessment of ‘zero-energy’ concepts and monitoring of the energy and indoor climate in a zero-carbon neighbourhood. Supported by a personal research grant from the Ghent University Special Research fund, she focuses on the analysis of the real energy use of dwellings based on smart meter data. The research aligns with the international research collaborations in IEA Annex 58 and leads to the PhD dissertation entitled 'Characterisation of residential energy use for heating using smart meter data' (2017).
As postdoc Eline coordinates the Horizon Europe project hybridGEOTABS (2017-2021) and coaches the UGent researchers. In this project, the design, control, implementation and real performance of hybrid GEOTABS HVAC-systems is studied. The project tackles the major bottlenecks of the hybridGEOTABS concept, allowing for a wider implementation of this environmentally friendly technology within the EU market.
From 2021 onwards, Eline continues to support various projects in the Building physics group. She joins the core group of EnerGhentIC, the UGent community of Energy researchers, as SPOC for collaborations with the city of Ghent. She aims to harmonise interdisciplinary collaboration on the challenge of the energy transition of the built environment, at the interface between research, innovation, policy and practice.