Periodic Reporting for period 2 - R4E (Roadmaps for Energy)
Reporting period: 2016-09-01 to 2018-02-28
OBJECTIVE
In the Roadmaps for Energy (R4E) project, partners work together to develop a new energy strategy: their Energy Roadmap. The difference with the regular energy strategies and action plans is the much earlier and more developed involvement of local stakeholders. These include not only those who will benefit from the new strategy, such as the citizens, but also relevant research and industry partners. They offer a much clearer view of the future potential of the city in terms of measures and technologies, as well as of the challenges presented by today’s situations in the cities. The aim is to create a shared vision, containing the desired, city-specific scenarios and the dedicated roadmaps to be embedded in each city’s specific context, taking into account the diversity in geography, ecology, climate, society and culture of the 8 R4E partner cities: Eindhoven, Forlì, Istanbul, Newcastle, Murcia, Palermo, Sant Cugat and Tallinn. The knowledge partners, TU/e and UPC, bring in expertise on vision creation and roadmapping and on the content and process of energy roadmapping.
R4E focuses on the vision creation and roadmapping capacities of municipalities. This includes initiating joint activities to drive the development and implementation of innovative energy solutions in cities. In this way R4E partners learn the process and roadmap structure and gain the skills needed to work independently on their future roadmaps.
The ultimate aim is to create a process that allows the partners to work together in developing the Energy Roadmap to achieve their ‘Smart Cities’ ambition. R4E focuses on 3 key areas of sustainable energy: Smart buildings, Smart mobility and Smart urban spaces.
APPROACH
R4E follows a 4-step approach:
1. Set the ambitions of the R4E cities on sustainable energy and Smart Cities, as well as their choice of three Smart Energy Saving focus areas
2. Develop scenarios for the selected focus areas
3. Create the roadmap. Identify existing and future technologies and other developments, which will enable the desired future scenarios. Plot opportunities and developments on a timeline to show the route and milestones towards the desired scenarios. The roadmaps contain common parts for all the partner cities, as well as specific parts for the cities individually
4. Create a portfolio of new projects to achieve the ambitions, visions and roadmaps of the cities. This portfolio shows the shared and individual projects, and includes a cross-city learning plan and a financial plan
In the Roadmaps for Energy (R4E) project, partners work together to develop a new energy strategy: their Energy Roadmap. The difference with the regular energy strategies and action plans is the much earlier and more developed involvement of local stakeholders. These include not only those who will benefit from the new strategy, such as the citizens, but also relevant research and industry partners. They offer a much clearer view of the future potential of the city in terms of measures and technologies, as well as of the challenges presented by today’s situations in the cities. The aim is to create a shared vision, containing the desired, city-specific scenarios and the dedicated roadmaps to be embedded in each city’s specific context, taking into account the diversity in geography, ecology, climate, society and culture of the 8 R4E partner cities: Eindhoven, Forlì, Istanbul, Newcastle, Murcia, Palermo, Sant Cugat and Tallinn. The knowledge partners, TU/e and UPC, bring in expertise on vision creation and roadmapping and on the content and process of energy roadmapping.
R4E focuses on the vision creation and roadmapping capacities of municipalities. This includes initiating joint activities to drive the development and implementation of innovative energy solutions in cities. In this way R4E partners learn the process and roadmap structure and gain the skills needed to work independently on their future roadmaps.
The ultimate aim is to create a process that allows the partners to work together in developing the Energy Roadmap to achieve their ‘Smart Cities’ ambition. R4E focuses on 3 key areas of sustainable energy: Smart buildings, Smart mobility and Smart urban spaces.
APPROACH
R4E follows a 4-step approach:
1. Set the ambitions of the R4E cities on sustainable energy and Smart Cities, as well as their choice of three Smart Energy Saving focus areas
2. Develop scenarios for the selected focus areas
3. Create the roadmap. Identify existing and future technologies and other developments, which will enable the desired future scenarios. Plot opportunities and developments on a timeline to show the route and milestones towards the desired scenarios. The roadmaps contain common parts for all the partner cities, as well as specific parts for the cities individually
4. Create a portfolio of new projects to achieve the ambitions, visions and roadmaps of the cities. This portfolio shows the shared and individual projects, and includes a cross-city learning plan and a financial plan
Through the 4 steps of R4E, 16 visions and roadmaps for the 8 partner cities were developed to plan and implement sustainable energy policies and measures. Three things at the same time were achieved:
- Quality in content: Creation of high quality visions and roadmaps that drive collaboration between municipalities, entrepreneurs, knowledge institutes and citizens to achieve longer term ambitious goals through short term decisions and actions
- Quality in process: Implementation of a similar participative process for vision and roadmap development that enabled continuous cross-city learning exchange of experiences, challenges and best practices
- Quality in ecosystem: Building an ecosystem of relevant local parties in each city and internationally recognised thought leaders, laying the foundation for extended collaboration between partners to drive innovation for sustainability purposes, through joint projects
At the final phase, the consortium worked on a Project Portfolio, including joint and individual projects, to help the R4E cities to take the first steps towards reaching the ambitions and visions set in their visions and roadmaps. The Portfolio process enabled the partners to focus on their plans in the (near) future after finalisation of R4E, and helped them to get a good idea of each other’s’ strengths and learning objectives, thereby deepening the relations and paving the way for future cooperation.
Part of the 4 steps were the 3 different workshops: Ambition, Scenario and Roadmap workshops, that were organised in each city. Local stakeholders were invited to co-create the different parts of the roadmaps, such as setting the ambitions and developing the desired future scenarios for the city, resulting in the City Specific Roadmaps and Final Reports.
Each step ended in a Joint Workshop: Joint Ambition (1), Vision (2), Roadmap (3) and Project Portfolio (4) Workshop, where all partners met to share results, compare and learn from each other.
Dissemination of R4E results and outreach was achieved through the R4E Animation movies and the 3 official R4E Dissemination events, of which the R4E Final Conference had the biggest impact through the high number of participants, Social Media and the impressive media coverage. Additionally, 3 videos were developed, which explain the added value of R4E and its methodology to the R4E cities and what others can learn from this.
All R4E reports (except for confidential reports) and videos, as well as relevant publications and news, are available and published on the R4E website.
- Quality in content: Creation of high quality visions and roadmaps that drive collaboration between municipalities, entrepreneurs, knowledge institutes and citizens to achieve longer term ambitious goals through short term decisions and actions
- Quality in process: Implementation of a similar participative process for vision and roadmap development that enabled continuous cross-city learning exchange of experiences, challenges and best practices
- Quality in ecosystem: Building an ecosystem of relevant local parties in each city and internationally recognised thought leaders, laying the foundation for extended collaboration between partners to drive innovation for sustainability purposes, through joint projects
At the final phase, the consortium worked on a Project Portfolio, including joint and individual projects, to help the R4E cities to take the first steps towards reaching the ambitions and visions set in their visions and roadmaps. The Portfolio process enabled the partners to focus on their plans in the (near) future after finalisation of R4E, and helped them to get a good idea of each other’s’ strengths and learning objectives, thereby deepening the relations and paving the way for future cooperation.
Part of the 4 steps were the 3 different workshops: Ambition, Scenario and Roadmap workshops, that were organised in each city. Local stakeholders were invited to co-create the different parts of the roadmaps, such as setting the ambitions and developing the desired future scenarios for the city, resulting in the City Specific Roadmaps and Final Reports.
Each step ended in a Joint Workshop: Joint Ambition (1), Vision (2), Roadmap (3) and Project Portfolio (4) Workshop, where all partners met to share results, compare and learn from each other.
Dissemination of R4E results and outreach was achieved through the R4E Animation movies and the 3 official R4E Dissemination events, of which the R4E Final Conference had the biggest impact through the high number of participants, Social Media and the impressive media coverage. Additionally, 3 videos were developed, which explain the added value of R4E and its methodology to the R4E cities and what others can learn from this.
All R4E reports (except for confidential reports) and videos, as well as relevant publications and news, are available and published on the R4E website.
- The strong involvement of external local stakeholders made R4E cities realize that they cannot implement their plans by their own. Visions of the external local stakeholders provide valuable and specific knowledge, experience and expertise, which gives added value to the plans and needs of the cities. The visions and ideas of municipal staff and of external stakeholders are complementary, and it would have been very difficult to gain all that information without the R4E approach and guidelines provided within the project.
- R4E helped to get more political support, among others through signing the Official R4E Statement. Politicians have become more conscious about the need to work hand in hand within the municipal organisation as well as with external stakeholders, to evolve from the current situation to that ideal scenario. Synergies have been created between different municipal departments of R4E cities, resulting in more consistency and integration of the targets and objectives of the different departments.
- This multi-stakeholder approach also helped R4E cities to bridge the gap between the SEAP/SECAP and the actual implementation of the plans, allowing cities to connect their SEAP/SECAP with recent programmes for the sustainable development of the city through a more holistic approach, which has supported the generation of project ideas in line with their SEAP/SECAP.
- Some specific project ideas and a spin-off project have resulted from R4E, such as the European project ‘UNaLab’. Through UNaLab, 7 other European cities will also benefit from the learnings of R4E.
- R4E partners developed several project ideas that will be further elaborated, and will help them to achieve the ambitions and visions set out in their roadmaps. The entire Portfolio process also provided them with better knowledge on how to develop future collaborative projects.
Summarizing, the participatory process that has been applied throughout R4E has been an important asset for many partners, because it made them aware of the importance of involving stakeholders from the internal organisation, from the local ecosystem and at European level, enabling them to get more supported, realistic and holistic plans for the implementation of their sustainable energy policies and to develop strong and long-lasting relations for future projects.
- R4E helped to get more political support, among others through signing the Official R4E Statement. Politicians have become more conscious about the need to work hand in hand within the municipal organisation as well as with external stakeholders, to evolve from the current situation to that ideal scenario. Synergies have been created between different municipal departments of R4E cities, resulting in more consistency and integration of the targets and objectives of the different departments.
- This multi-stakeholder approach also helped R4E cities to bridge the gap between the SEAP/SECAP and the actual implementation of the plans, allowing cities to connect their SEAP/SECAP with recent programmes for the sustainable development of the city through a more holistic approach, which has supported the generation of project ideas in line with their SEAP/SECAP.
- Some specific project ideas and a spin-off project have resulted from R4E, such as the European project ‘UNaLab’. Through UNaLab, 7 other European cities will also benefit from the learnings of R4E.
- R4E partners developed several project ideas that will be further elaborated, and will help them to achieve the ambitions and visions set out in their roadmaps. The entire Portfolio process also provided them with better knowledge on how to develop future collaborative projects.
Summarizing, the participatory process that has been applied throughout R4E has been an important asset for many partners, because it made them aware of the importance of involving stakeholders from the internal organisation, from the local ecosystem and at European level, enabling them to get more supported, realistic and holistic plans for the implementation of their sustainable energy policies and to develop strong and long-lasting relations for future projects.