The deliverable D6.1: Established Baseline and DST for each FC was submitted by Integrated Environmental Solutions Research and Development (IESRD) with contributions from MAI, MP, SB, SMO, VÕRU, and EAP in April 2022. The executive summary of the deliverable is available below and the full deliverable is at the end for download:
“This document represents the work completed as part of Task 6.1 ‘Creating the Integrated Baseline Model for the Follower Cities’, and as such the task will apply the Decision Support Tool (DST) developed in WP1 (D1.4: Demonstration of the +CityxChange Integrated Modelling Platform) to the Follower Cities.
The main area of demonstration is concerned with creating the baseline for the current energy and socio economic situation in the Follower Cities Demonstration Districts, Areas and potential PEB buildings. From this baseline, future potential scenarios can now be modelled to begin to guide the cities on the potential of achieving their PEBs and the most suitable approaches to creating a Bold City Vision.
To achieve an effective baseline, data was first gathered concerning the Follower Cities and their Demonstration Districts and potential PEBs. This data was imported into the DST and mapped to the building types and construction categories contained within it. Fuel types, carbon emissions of fuel and tariffs were also set and the baseline for energy demand in the cities were conducted. For the buildings in the potential PEB area, a more detailed energy baseline was formed by accessing certain parameters within IESVE software to increase the accuracy of the models prior to simulation.
Where complete building and energy usage data was available, it was possible to achieve the highly accurate results in terms of the simulations when compared to real life performance. For example, for the potential PEBs in Alba Iulia, Smolyan and Voru, the difference between the simulated baselines and actual energy consumption of the buildings was less than 4%, and in some cases less than 1%. However, a key lesson learned for the baseline simulations was regarding the use of assumed data and its validation. To ensure accuracy for the energy simulations, particularly of potential PEB buildings, it is important that assumptions are validated as much as possible. Efforts were made to reduce the amount of data collection required from the Follower Cities by using already available GIS data, deriving building data from national statistics and agreeing assumptions with cities. However, there were instances where hours of operations or heating set points for buildings were assumed, resulting in unacceptable variances (+-10% compared to actual energy usage) in the simulation results.
In terms of the energy supply baseline, where possible this was completed using a map of the electricity network within the potential PEB which showed the location of substations which was then replicated in the DST.
For the socio economic baseline, where possible, census data was available from each city at the lowest boundary level and added to the DST. It should be noted however, that as the lowest level of data available was much larger than the PEB boundaries, an analysis of the socio economic impacts of PEB creation will be difficult to achieve.
Although the data to baseline mobility was not available, it was confirmed by all cities that, currently, EV charging points are not installed in the Demonstration Districts which means this aspect is baselined at zero.
Following all baselines being completed, proposed energy interventions were produced as part of Task 6.4 Feasibility Studies, and these were reviewed to check how the DST could model these. Overall, it is positive that nearly all interventions can be modelled with little outside resources required.
In order to allow different users to view results and analyse potential future plans, online dashboards were set up and access can be given according to the user’s needs. It needs to be agreed with each Follower City what content should be made public to ensure maximum non-technical stakeholders can be reached.
All Follower Cities have validated the DST results for their respective sites and have undergone initial training to be able to use the online Dashboards for further analysis and engagement amongst stakeholders. In terms of feedback to evaluate the DST from the cities perspective, whilst no formal process has taken place to gather this, anecdotal feedback has been positive, with cities eager to use the software and learn more about how they can use it to help with their future decarbonisation plans.
The next steps regarding the Follower City DSTs have been identified as follows:
● Further engagement and training to the relevant Follower City staff by IES RD is being planned and conducted via support for IES RD and the Online PEB Design Workflow Tool (see D1.4: Demonstration of the +CityxChange Integrated Modelling Platform and Section 2.2.4 in this document for more information). This will enable relevant people in the Follower Cities to run future energy simulations for themselves and to analyse the results.
● T6.2 BCVs – now the baselines are set, the DST for each Follower City can be used to help the city create its Bold City Vision. The DST can be used to replicate PEBs across the areas modelled and also show decarbonisation over time. As well as this, the impact of different measures on socio economic indicators can be modelled.”
