This year, five +CityxChange cities (Limerick, Pisek, Sestao, Trondheim, and Voru) worked together to develop coordinated Climathon events (WP10). A Climathon is an opportunity for public engagement around city-specific climate challenges, which can be tied to the work of the +CityxChange project. Our five cities collaborated over months to develop and deliver events which would be responsive to their local citizens and stakeholders, under quite challenging circumstances. Now that our events are nearing completion, we would like to invite our project partners to an informal sharing session, to hear about the lessons we learned in working together to reach out, in this most unusual year.

If you have any questions about the session, please contact Madeleine Lyes (Space Engagers, Limerick) – madeleine.lyes@spaceengagers.org.

December 16th at 12pm (CET). Click here to register.

The 56^th ISOCARP World Planning Congress “Post-Oil City. Planning for Urban Green Deals” is held virtually from 8 November 2020 to 4 February 2021. ISOCARP Institute is proud to host the Special Session “Digital Infrastructure for Smart Urban Services and Public Value ” on 9 December 2020, 1.30 pm CET.

The session will reflect on how cities can support the ecological transition by providing more sustainable urban services (i.e. energy, health, mobility, etc.) and improving the quality of life of citizens. This session is relevant especially for those cities which are introducing smart and green pilot projects in their local contexts, and seek collaboration with local communities and actors to achieve a successful implementation. Direct experiences from the EU projects where ISOCARP Institute is involved will be presented.

Dirk Ahlers will be presenting project results from +CityxChange.

Click here for the full programme.

Since the global pandemic is still impacting our daily lives, the Smart City Expo team and Fira de Barcelona are finding a new way to reconnect all the industry actors and rebuild ecosystems to accelerate a much-needed recovery. This year we are transforming ourselves into an online event: Smart City Live, a one-shot, innovative edition happening digitally on November 17 – 18, 2020, that will maintain the event quality and international scope that we are known for while putting our participants’ safety first.

The new Smart City Live will consist of a full-day, broadcast television show on day one, with interviews, debates, and success stories focusing on how COVID-19 has impacted cities and is redefining citizens’ normality, plus a program on day two featuring workshops, sessions, and side events, which will gather key players and global institutions to tackle the challenges beyond the short-term impact of the pandemic.

Along with Smart City Live, we will see the kick-off of the first Tomorrow.City initiatives. Our global platform of platforms that combines research, technology, and investment 365 days a year will, in the coming months, launch a capacity-building platform, a radar exploring disruptive technologies, and a podcast series reflecting on the new ‘smart’ for cities.

Given that roughly 75% of Europe’s population lives in cities the EU’s urban areas are important contributors to the EU’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which have a huge impact on climate change. A smart city is a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and business. A smart city goes beyond the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for better resource use and less emissions. It means smarter urban transport networks, upgraded water supply and waste disposal facilities and more efficient ways to light and heat buildings.

This workshop aims at presenting and discussing different tools and approaches of how to improve the collaboration between the different people, businesses and organisations in a smart city community when deploying innovative energy concepts like Positive Energy Districts. Also discussed will be the question of how to take into account secondary benefits against pay-back times of interventions, for public authorities or for economic actors.

Participating projects : MAKING-CITY (H2020), +CityxChange (H2020), POCITYF (H2020), ENERGE (Interreg NWE), MATCHUP (H2020), ATELIER (H2020)

On the 23rd of September 2020, the largest Smart City event in the Nordics will take place. Since its inception, Nordic Edge has worked for innovation, societal and business transformation. Along with the rest of the world, the organisation is facing its biggest change to date. The 6th edition of the leading Smart City event in the Nordics is going digital in 2020. Rather than a large gathering in Stavanger, keynote talks will be broadcast from stages across Europe and seamlessly be tailored to attendees through a designated platform which allows for interactive parallel sessions and networking.

Learn more: https://nordicedge.org/nordic-edge-expo-goes-digital/

The third Nordic-Irish Partnership event on Smart Cities focuses on the role of district heating in the energy transition and decarbonising heat across the island of Ireland and the four Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.

Sustainable innovation and smart solutions are essential to tackle the pressing issues of global climate change. In the EU, the energy used for heating and cooling constitutes the largest share of overall energy demand. A shift towards efficient, low-carbon heat sources is needed to reduce energy consumption in Europe. Due to the cold climate in the Nordic countries, heating has always been high on the agenda and much effort has gone into making it more efficient. District heating is today considered common practice in the Nordics and it has played a significant role in the countries’ heat decarbonisation.

Since district heating is not dependent on a specific singular source of fuel, it supports the future-proofing of cities’ heat grids. In fact, it converts heat from being a problem to being a resource by making surplus energy valuable, while reducing the need to burn fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases. In Ireland, for instance, there is considerable potential to use excess heat from data centres for district heating.

Innovative district heating systems have already disrupted the traditional supplies of heat in many parts of Europe, and the stage is set for the same transition to take place in Ireland.

The topic of the webinar is smart solutions for district heating with a focus on energy transition and the decarbonisation of heat with the intent to give an introduction to district heating in the Nordics and Ireland. This is a free webinar.

Speakers include:

• Donna Gartland, Codema & Irish District Energy Association
• Morten Jordt Duedahl, Danish Board of District Heating
• Kari Lahti, Fortum (Finland)
• Trygve Mellvang Tomren-Berg, Norwegian District Energy Association
• Sustainable Heating & Cooling by Sweden (speaker TBC)

Register for the webinar here: https://bit.ly/3bp1tKp 

Limerick City and County Council wants to hear your opinions and ideas about co-creating a sustainable low carbon future for Limerick City Centre. The outcome of the City Engage week of activities will enable communities to share their vision of Limerick with the Council and project partners so that people can play an active role in determining how their community will develop into the future.

City Engage – Local Renewable Energy follows on from the hugely successful City Engage – Georgian Limerick Laneways which is working with local businesses and community groups to revitalise some of Limerick Georgian Neighbourhood Laneways. The results of these collaborations are due to be unveiled shortly. The City Engage series is part of +CityxChange.

There is a full calendar of events for City Engage – Local Renewable Energy, where participants can:

• map solar energy potential in the Georgian core 
• build their own energy monitor 
• learn about local energy communities 
• explore the potential of river turbine for a sustainable energy future 

Get registered for our events:  https://cityxchange.eu/city-engage-week-to-focus-on-local-renewable-energy-in-limerick/

The workshop on “P2P Energy Market Platforms”  will take place in Brno (CZ) during the URBIS smart city fair, from the 2nd to the 3rd of September 2020. The workshop will consist of a first expert presentations session followed by a world café.

Click here to register for the call which will be open until the 20th of June. You will then be notified if your abstract has been accepted or not by the end of June. The workshop is organised by the EU-funded smart city projects POCITYF and SPARCS with the support of the smart cities projects Sharing Cities, Smarter Together, +CityxChange, Atelier and MAKING-CITY.

For info contact: info@pocityf.eu

The final conference will be the opportunity for the consortium to come together one more time (albeit virtually) to portray the legacy of this major 5-year Lighthouse project, including the project’s sustainable urban regeneration model. It will mark the end of the project and the beginning of a new era of urban regeneration, more ecological, more citizen-centred and more intelligent in approach.

We will walk you through our actions and achievements in the three Lighthouse cities, Nottingham, Eskişehir/Tepebaşı and Valladolid while looking ahead to how all this can shape our urban and environmental policymaking in the years to come.

The event will be virtual. It will feature keynote speeches and panel discussions, bringing together representatives of fellow projects, key European stakeholders and policymakers from the different European and Turkish cities that have participated in the project.

Click here to register: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/3272993635999198734

To attempt making sense of current rapid developments, this Cyber Agora event will showcase the current stage of technology and best practices to plan and co-create places, activate citizens, and stimulate open discussions. Simultaneously, the event will reflect on the extent of the benefits associated with digital tools. Participants will engage with questions such as:

• Is the crisis an engine for transformation and progress?
• Are we overreacting with countless webinars and online virtual spaces to compensate for the inability to travel, meet, and connect in person?
• How much of these technological advances will remain post-COVID-19?
• What can we learn and should keep as best practice examples?
• Can remote collaboration and public participation really replace its face-to-face pendant?

ISOCARP Institute, NTNU and Colaborativa.eu, will cooperate on the online debate hosted by ISOCARP on behalf of +CityxChange as well as authors of the SCIS Solutions Booklet and Citizen Participation Playbook.

Click here to register!

Register here https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1363767559959218701

PEDs (Positive Energy Districts) are an important concept in both the EC’s Smart Cities & Communities (SCC) programmes and the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET plan). In the EC’s SCC Lighthouse programme, which has set PEDs as a formal standard in its recent calls, over 420 Million Euro are invested in 47 Lighthouse Cities and 67 Fellow Cities.

Two main lines of action are currently ongoing in this context: the refinement of the PED definition in order to arrive at a commonly accepted standard for PED implementation and the building of PEDs in on-the-ground projects such as under the EC SCC Lighthouse scheme. Given the current developments, a third factor is brought into the discussion: how can PEDs contribute to increased robustness against shocks and at the same time present specific opportunities for post-covid recovery (Green Deal).

The session gives an in-depth state of the art assessment for both lines of action and recommends on future developments in a perspective of recovery as sketched higher. The session is primarily intended at actors involved in PED development as well as interested delegates of local authorities, civil society organisations, developers and technology providers.

Selected examples of PEDs (under construction) are analysed for their relevance in solving the many technical and non-technical challenges towards their realisation. From this analysis, recommendations for improved roll-out and policy support are derived while interactively involving the audience.

Session Agenda

Pitch 1: Definitions and approaches: an overview – Han Vandevyvere, SCIS consortium (Vito)

Pitch 2: The PED Framework – a joint PED vision – Christoph Gollner, FFG (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft mbH)

Pitch 3: Challenges of the local context – Rudy Rooth, Atelier Local Coordinator Amsterdam (DNVGL)

Pitch 4:  Reality check in current EIP SCC Lighthouse Cities – 2 field cases +CityxChange, Powel  and  MAKING-CITY, Oulu (Marit Teigen Myrstad +CityxChange, Samuli Rinne MAKING-CITY)

Discussion 1: Elaborating on the PED definition and certification work, feedback to the SET plan

Discussion 2: Addressing challenges and barriers to building PEDs on the ground: recommendations, next steps, feedback to the related EU policy and regulatory frameworks

Wrap up: Reporting from the discussion groups

Register here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/6947166770643706128

The objective of our panel discussion is to provide insights in replication and upscaling of Smart City solutions through external investment having in mind that in just a few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a historical economic setback of which we still do not know the full impact.

The purpose of the panel discussion is to present financial and business models that are currently being implemented to (i) finance the implementation of Smart City and infrastructure projects, (ii) retrofit the existing building stock in Europe, (iii) finance renewable energy infrastructure and (iv) facilitate combined public-private sustainable investments.

Our panel discussion should achieve three goals: firstly, to clarify financing & business models, secondly, to collect critical feedback from participants on the feasibility and replicability of these models and thirdly, to discuss how investors are addressing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in the current pipeline of projects.

Agenda

The invited speakers are European leading investors and financial advisors that have experience in financing Smart Cities.

10:00 – 10:10 CEST          Welcome & Introduction

• Georg Houben, Policy Officer, DG Energy – European Commission

10:10 – 11:10 CEST          Presentation from leading investors

• Jorge Rodrigues de Almeida (Moderator), EIP-SCC Marketplace
• Juan Alario, Financial Advisor, Former EIB
• Carlos Sanchez, Senior Associate, Whitehelm Capital
• Fernando de Roda, Managing Partner, Greenward Partners

11:10 – 11:30 CEST          Q&A

11:30 CEST                      End of panel discussion

Meaningful citizen engagement is a challenge in any city-making process led by public institutions. As part of +Cityxchange, Colaborativa.eu has developed the Citizen Participation Playbook to help local authorities to empower local communities and lead the transformation towards Positive Energy Districts and Cities. This Playbook is not a mere compilation of physical and online citizen participatory tools, but a detailed roadmap of four distinctive citizen participatory processes including phases, steps, stakeholders and outcomes. The webinar will present +Cityxchange’s Citizen Participation Playbook, how to use it in your own citizen engagement activities and how to apply it within the +CityxChange project.

Click here to register!

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

Open Call Information Match-Making. Have an innovative idea for sustainable energy generation? Come partner up and see if your prototype will make the +CityxChange solutions catalogue of Positive Energy. This Open Call will identify and support the first Urban Prototypes to be tested in the Georgian Neighbourhood and focused on developing solutions for Laneways and Citizen Sensing supports. The open call is looking for teams involving local community groups, supported by designers and makers to design, create and test solutions to common issues in the Georgian Neighbourhood area.

Triangulum invites all interested stakeholders to a webinar about “Citizen Engagement in Positive Energy Districts”. Speakers from the Triangulum Lighthouse Cities Eindhoven and Stavanger as well as guest speakers from the Smart City project, +CityxChange, will tell you more about their experiences from and their plans for local innovations.

When: 12 December 2019, 2 PM (CET)

Join here: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/124867349 (no registration needed!)

Speakers:

1) May Endresen from Greater Stavanger (Stavanger, Triangulum) will be speaking about how to make invisible projects visible for the citizens and how to best include them.
2) Marieke van den Wijngaard from Woonbedrijf (Eindhoven, Triangulum) will be speaking about citizen engagement as part of the energy-efficient renovation process of 250 social houses in Eindhoven where the tenant is put into the driver’s seat with the help of the mobile app “WoonConnect”.
3) Kieran Reeve from Limerick City and County Council (Limerick, +CityXChange) will be speaking about his experience of public engagement in the area of urban planning over his 25-year career.
4) Kristin Næss from Trondheim Kommune (Trondheim, +CityXChange) will be speaking about the need for user involvement in smart cities.