Solar thermal energy has been adopted in medium and long‐term energy strategies within EU countries for increasing the energy efficiency of buildings. In this context, the overall objective of this project consists in developing an innovative high performance and cost effective hybrid system (solar heat and electrical power). The initial application is to be implemented in residential buildings for on‐site electricity and heat generation using solar thermal energy. The proposed technology is expected to deliver 60% of domestic energy requirements (heating and domestic hot water) and provide 20% reduction in energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions compared to the best existing low carbon energy technologies. A benchmark on the energy demand for the different types of residential buildings in Europe serves as reference scenario to evaluate the potential applicability of the different existing renewable technologies and to establish a comparative framework in terms of quantitative values. Thus, the specific aim of this study consists in performing a state‐of‐the‐art on the different building typologies, which can host this technology, and their energy demands for heating and domestic hot water, as well as their associated CO2 emissions.