In the +CityxChange project, the Bold City Vision (BCV) Framework helps cities identify and address key opportunities and actions on their way towards becoming smarter and more sustainable. The framework incorporates the process of creating a city vision and goals that situate the ambition of creating Positive Energy Cities within the cities’ overarching strategic planning and management processes.
Author: ISOCARP Institute
Positive Energy Districts (PED)
A Positive Energy District (PED) can, according to the SET-Plan Action no. 3.2, be defined as the following. It should not be confused with Positive Energy Blocks (PEB).
“PEDs require interaction and integration between buildings, the users and the regional energy, mobility and ICT system, as well as an integrative approach including technology, spatial, regulatory, financial, legal, social and economic perspectives (Figure 5). Ideally, PEDs will be developed in an open innovation framework, driven by cities in cooperation with industry and investors, research and citizen organisations.
In this context, a PED is seen as a district with annual net zero energy import7, and net zero CO2 emission working towards an annual local surplus production of renewable energy. The defining aspects, or “building blocks” of PEDs are:A PED is embedded in an urban and regional energy system, preferably driven by renewable energy, in order to provide optimised security and flexibility of supply.
- A PED is based on a high level of energy efficiency, in order to keep annual local energy consumption lower than the amount of locally produced renewable energy.
- Within the regional energy system, a PED enables the use of renewable energy by offering optimised flexibility and in managing consumption and storage capacities on demand. Active management will allow for balancing and optimisation, peak shaving, load shifting, demand response and reduced curtailment of RES, and district-level self- consumption of electricity and thermal energy
- A PED couples built environment, sustainable production and consumption, and mobility to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions and to create added value and incentives for the consumer. E.g., PEDs facilitate increased EV charging capability within the district and ensure that the impact of EVs on the distribution will be minimised by using local generation where possible.
- A PED makes optimal use of elements such as advanced materials, local RES and other low carbon energy sources (e.g. waste heat from industry and service sector, such as data centres), local storage, smart energy grids, demand-response, cutting edge energy management (electricity, heating and cooling), user interaction/involvement and ICT.
- PED should offer affordable living for the inhabitants.
PEDs will be implemented in newly built and retrofitted districts or districts with a mix of both.”
+CityxChange has expanded upon this definition in a recent paper by Dirk Ahlers and Annemie Wyckmans of +CxC with Han Vandevyvere, titled The Sense and Non-Sense of PEDs—Feeding Back Practical Experiences of Positive Energy District Demonstrators into the European PED Framework Definition Development Process. The article contributes an operational definition of PEDs and discusses the practicalities of PED implementation. It further identifies 4 subtypes that respond to varying constraints regarding the energy balance of the PED and identifies 3 boundary conditions under which the definition can hold.
D11.16: Data Management Plan 3
The deliverable 11.16, Data Management Plan 3, was submitted by NTNU in December 2020. Following, the executive summary of the deliverable:
‘This deliverable constitutes the third version of the Data Management Plan for the +CityxChange project. It specifies Data Governance and handling of data in the project, what types of data are expected to be generated in the project, if and how it will be made open and accessible for verification and re-use. It will also specify how it will be curated and preserved, with details such as ethical, privacy, and security issues.
All beneficiaries are informed of the applicable regulations around human participation, informed consent, data processing, data security, and pertinent regulations such as GDPR or H2020 Ethics or FAIR guidelines. When personal data collection or processing is started, the DMP information will be updated accordingly to include updated data summaries, consent forms, compliance, and institutional approval where necessary. Processing of personal data will respect the Data Protection Principles. This document provides an overview of data handling in the project and provides the initial guidelines for the project. The project will support openness according to the EU FAIR approach and the principle “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” together with the project ambition of “Open by Default”.
This document is an update of D11.5: Data Management Plan – Initial Version and D11.7 Data Management Plan 2 and supersedes those documents. Changes to previous versions are detailed in the introduction section.’
D11.6: Risk Mitigation Registry 2
The deliverable 11.6, Risk Mitigation Registry 2, was submitted by NTNU in December 2020. Following, the executive summary of the deliverable:
‘This deliverable contains the +CityxChange risk management process and a regular review and update of the risk tables. It defines detailed risk management and review processes and sets expectations, procedures, and responsibilities. It presents an extended version of the risk tables, updated with the state at the time of writing with new risks based on lessons learned, and defines more detailed criteria for each identified risk, leading to operational risk management and tracking. This report also includes the process and results from an updated state-of-the-art review of existing SCC-01 projects in order to identify gaps in the risk management strategy and a new risk assessment section for COVID-19 implications. This report is the updated version of D11.4: Risk Mitigation Registry 1 and supersedes that document. Specific changes from the previous document are highlighted in the Introduction.’
+CityxChange Newsletter – December 2020
+CityxChange‘s fifth newsletter has been distributed in December 2020. Please, feel welcome to read the newsletter online here and distribute it to your network. This month’s newsletter contains the most important news and updates of the last three months from our project, focusing on how +CityxChange has adopted to a new digital format of events and interactions among project partners.
Further, we want to invite you to subscribe to the newsletters to not miss any project updates.
SCIS Positive Energy Districts solution booklet
The Smart Cities Information System (SCIS) Solution Booklet on “Positive Energy Districts” is out now.
Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) are gaining importance, both as urban innovation labs and as concrete, on-the-ground projects for creating future proof, energy-positive and climate-neutral urban living environments. Where do they come from and why should one have one or more PEDs developed in one’s own city?
+CityxChange has contributed to the development of this solution booklet with insights from the project’s solutions.
Võru to switch to a completely LED technology street lighting
Our follower city, Võru, is the first city in Estonia, and as far as we know, in the Baltics, where street lighting is 100% provided with energy-efficient LED lamps. During the last six years, the city of Võru has been working to ensure that street lighting throughout the city is modern, efficient to run and safe.
“The city of Võru has completed the complete modernization of street lighting, which has resulted in a significant increase in electricity savings, environmental sustainability and considerably improved traffic safety on pedestrian crossings,” commented Mayor Anti Allas.
According to Andres Visnapuu, the manager of OÜ Taristuhaldus, the company that manages street lighting in the city of Võru, there are a total of 2,428 lighting points in Võru today. “In recent years, 422 new lighting points have been added, and although street lighting points have been added, electricity consumption has decreased significantly. For example, 117,747 euros were spent on street lighting in 2014 and in 2019 the amount was only 68,282 euros,” Visnapuu commented, adding that if before the modernization there were only four lighted pedestrian crossings in Võru, today there are 104.
“Many thanks to us to the Environmental Investment Center (EIC), who has supported the modernization of street lighting,” said Visnapuu.
Under the leadership of the EIC, by the autumn of 2015, seven Estonian cities received new street lighting based on LED technology, which was considerably more energy and environmentally friendly than before. “This was a unique project, where in addition to the usual mediation and supervision of grant money, the EIC organized procurements for cities and was responsible for project management. One of these cities was also Võru, which at that time made its city whiter and more sustainable. Later, we have contributed from the structural funds to the modernization of street lighting in the city of Võru,” – says Andrus Treier, the head of EIC – “City street lighting works smarter and more economically.”
The last sodium lamp of the street lighting in the city of Võru was removed and replaced with a new LED lamp October 29, at 1 pm on Männiku Street.
D3.5: Framework for a Positive Energy Champion Network
This report describes how +CityxChange LHCs and FCs can engage citizens through a Positive Energy Champion Campaign to initiate a Positive Energy Champion Network – a team of individual Positive Energy Champions who embrace Positive Energy Concepts, take Positive Energy Actions and foster Positive Energy Communities by sharing their knowledge and experience with their fellow citizens. The Positive Energy Champion Network will comprise a network of local influencers who can help translate the ideas, plans and innovations associated with +CityxChange implementation and the clean energy transition into local knowledge and actions. Within this framework:
- Positive Energy Concepts are ideas, innovations or plans which contribute to the creation and replication of DPEBs and PEDs and the clean energy transition of a city.
- Positive Energy Actions are actions which make a Positive Energy Concept readily perceived or easily understood.
- Positive Energy Communities occur when citizens collaborate to initiate and sustain Positive Energy Actions.
The objectives of a Positive Energy Champion Network are to:
- Enable the creation and replication of Distributed Positive Energy Blocks (DPEBs) and Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) as part of a city’s clean energy transition.
- Raise awareness of Positive Energy Concepts amongst citizens and communities.
- Build capacity for Positive Energy Actions amongst citizens and communities to support the adoption of clean energy innovation.
The framework contains guidance on how to initiate a Positive Energy Champion Network including:
- Four Positive Energy Champion Campaign formats for use at different stages of DPEB implementation and replication.
- A proposed Positive Energy Champion Campaign structure.
- A step-by-step guide to implementing a Positive Energy Champion Campaign.
- Advice on sharing Positive Energy Champion success stories and learnings.
- Advice on connecting Positive Energy Champions within and across +CityxChange cities.
Resources to support the implementation of a Positive Energy Champion Campaign include:
- A Positive Energy Champion Training Module outline.
- A Positive Energy Champion Glossary of non-technical definitions of Positive Energy Concepts and Actions.
- A Positive Energy Champion Toolkit containing:
○ A how-to-guide for hosting an Energy Future Walkshop where Positive Energy Champions can engage their fellow citizens in discussions about +CityxChange and the clean energy transition of their city.
It is envisaged that this framework is implemented as part of +CityxChange Demonstration Project DP03 Engage, to complement and amplify the CommunityxChange suite of frameworks and to enable citizen participation in the creation and replication of DPEBs.
Sluppen City Lab opening in Trondheim
Over the past year and a half, partners have come together in the EU-project +CityxChange to develop forward thinking solutions within the energy sector.
Many partners gathered at Lager 11 in Trondheim on September 10th to exchange experiences so far within the project and to look at new business opportunities. At Lager 11 you’ll also find one of +CityxChange’ city labs. It was officially opened by the Minister of Local Government and Modernisation, Nikolai Aastrup. The lab provides information about the Sluppen area and about the project and its partners.
“The work and effort put into this project is quite impressive” says Chief City Executive in Trondheim, Morten Wolden. Wolden opened the meeting together with Vice-Chancellor for Innovation at NTNU, Toril A. Nagelhus Hernes. They explained how +CityxChange facilitate public-private cooperation for innovation and co-creation on a sustainability perspective.
API Deployment for Big Data Management towards Sustainable Energy Prosumption in Smart Cities – A Layered Architecture Perspective
Abstract
The smart city has emerged as a universal term for the pervasive utilisation of information and communication technologies deployed to provide value-added services to citizens based on data generated from sectors such as energy, mobility, etc. However, current approaches are faced with interoperability as a challenging issue in processing big data. Therefore, this study explores the role of application programming interfaces (APIs) for managing real-time, online, and historical energy data in the context of residential buildings and electric vehicles. Moreover, a layered architecture that employs APIs in big data is developed for district energy management towards providing energy information intelligence and support decision-making on energy sustainability in facilitating prosumption operations. Practically, the layered architecture collects energy data and provides data to prosumers who are citizens that produce, consume, share, and sell energy generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind to better improve energy prosumption in smart grid.
Year: 2019
Authors: Bokolo Anthony Jnr, Sobah Abbas Petersen, Dirk Ahlers, John Krogstie
Publisher: Taylor & Francis