Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NEUTRALPATH (Pathway towards Climate-Neutrality through low risky and fully replicable Positive Clean Energy Districts)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-01-01 do 2024-03-31
Zaragoza (Spain) and Dresden (Germany) aim to be climate-neutral in 2030 and are members of the Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities Mission. They have decided to work together with the aim to be pioneers at EU level in climate neutrality and zero pollution by 2030, acting as experimentation and innovation hubs to help all European cities to follow suit by 2050.
NEUTRALPATH aims at demonstrating that Positive and Clean Energy Districts (PCEDs) designed and implemented under participative and human-center principles are cost-effective and feasible solutions to contribute significantly to the cities’ transformation towards climate-neutrality, allowing to speed up the process even to reach SCOPE 2 emissions reduction in 2030. Dresden and Zaragoza will demonstrate 2 PCEDs from the design to the implementation and evaluation stages acting as Lighthouse Cities (LH). Both cities also ambition to act as front-runners of this process creating Climate-Neutral Labs (CN-Labs) conceived as Innovation Hubs with the aim of fostering faster upscaling and replicability at EU level, making three Fellow Cities (Istanbul, Ghent and Vantaa) through their own CN-Labs direct participants of the processes and later on main protagonists of their own PCED design.
NEUTRALPATH will deliver a strong contribution to meet the EU climate targets establishing a collaboration agreement with the Cities Mission Platform focused on exchanging knowledge and experiences, as well as with the main EU initiatives as H2020 SCC Lighthouse projects and SC Marketplace or Covenant of Mayors
NEUTRALPATH aims at demonstrating that Positive and Clean Energy Districts (PCEDs) designed and implemented under participative and human-center principles are cost-effective and feasible solutions to contribute significantly to the cities’ transformation towards climate-neutrality, allowing to speed up the process even to reach SCOPE 2 emissions reduction in 2030. Dresden and Zaragoza will demonstrate 2 PCEDs from the design to the implementation and evaluation stages acting as Lighthouse Cities (LH). Both cities also ambition to act as front-runners of this process creating Climate-Neutral Labs (CN-Labs) conceived as Innovation Hubs with the aim of fostering faster upscaling and replicability at EU level, making three Fellow Cities (Istanbul, Ghent and Vantaa) through their own CN-Labs direct participants of the processes and later on main protagonists of their own PCED design.
NEUTRALPATH will deliver a strong contribution to meet the EU climate targets establishing a collaboration agreement with the Cities Mission Platform focused on exchanging knowledge and experiences, as well as with the main EU initiatives as H2020 SCC Lighthouse projects and SC Marketplace or Covenant of Mayors
During the first stage of the project specific tasks have been completed within the two main axes of the project, the Positive and Clean Energy District and the Climate Neutrality of our cities. It has been established the basis for the further developments within the project and can be summarized as follows:
• Each of our five cities has set up their local CN-Lab, that engages citizen and stakeholder with the support of one facilitator within the consortium. Their activities have been defined in a co-creation process, mapping of local stakeholders, and designing mission, vision and roadmap for each CN-Lab. Their management structure has been defined to ensure maintenance of the Lab after the project ends and it will be updated periodically along with the roadmap.
• Working with local environments to enhance knowledge exchanged, find synergies with the Mission and CCC activities governance models have been studied. Questionnaires and Bilateral Meetings have been done with each city to set their current state of the Climate Strategy establishing city profiles that help to define the Capability program according to cities needs and interests.
• The detailed final design of the 2 PCED has been completed with the final technical definition of all the actions about 1) Decarbonization of energy production, 2) Passive solutions to reduce demand in buildings, 3) E-mobility. The current business model and funding scheme in each PCED have been analyzed.
• The evaluation framework has been completely defined. It includes not only energy but also improvements in air and environmental quality, as a step forward from PEDs.
• The consortium has been working on conducting a bankability assessment of both standalone and packaged solutions models for each city. A GIS-Based Multicriteria Assessment for Identification of Positive Energy Districts Boundary in Cities has been established to study the replicability and upscaling of the PCEDs in the five cities.
• The C&D Plan has been established and also the Roadmap for inter-projects cooperation. the first version of the Library of Key Exploitable Results containing the starting point of possible exploitable results within the project.
• Each of our five cities has set up their local CN-Lab, that engages citizen and stakeholder with the support of one facilitator within the consortium. Their activities have been defined in a co-creation process, mapping of local stakeholders, and designing mission, vision and roadmap for each CN-Lab. Their management structure has been defined to ensure maintenance of the Lab after the project ends and it will be updated periodically along with the roadmap.
• Working with local environments to enhance knowledge exchanged, find synergies with the Mission and CCC activities governance models have been studied. Questionnaires and Bilateral Meetings have been done with each city to set their current state of the Climate Strategy establishing city profiles that help to define the Capability program according to cities needs and interests.
• The detailed final design of the 2 PCED has been completed with the final technical definition of all the actions about 1) Decarbonization of energy production, 2) Passive solutions to reduce demand in buildings, 3) E-mobility. The current business model and funding scheme in each PCED have been analyzed.
• The evaluation framework has been completely defined. It includes not only energy but also improvements in air and environmental quality, as a step forward from PEDs.
• The consortium has been working on conducting a bankability assessment of both standalone and packaged solutions models for each city. A GIS-Based Multicriteria Assessment for Identification of Positive Energy Districts Boundary in Cities has been established to study the replicability and upscaling of the PCEDs in the five cities.
• The C&D Plan has been established and also the Roadmap for inter-projects cooperation. the first version of the Library of Key Exploitable Results containing the starting point of possible exploitable results within the project.
With the main impact of contributing to the climate neutrality of our cities, NEUTRALPATH will provide integrated strategies to address the urban energy transition through PCED implementation.
Important progresses have been carried out towards achieving this impact of the project, through the activities that are setting the basis for the demonstration activities that are currently setting the first steps we can highlight during until now:
• Tested the insulation with recycled polyurethane in Zaragoza’s demo building with very good results
• Completed the energy balance module of the energy and environmental assessment tool for PCEDs replication
• Created the database as a baseline of consumption behavior for Dresden site A
• Ready the technical concept for the self-sufficient Energy-System for multi-family small detached houses in Dresden site B
Important progresses have been carried out towards achieving this impact of the project, through the activities that are setting the basis for the demonstration activities that are currently setting the first steps we can highlight during until now:
• Tested the insulation with recycled polyurethane in Zaragoza’s demo building with very good results
• Completed the energy balance module of the energy and environmental assessment tool for PCEDs replication
• Created the database as a baseline of consumption behavior for Dresden site A
• Ready the technical concept for the self-sufficient Energy-System for multi-family small detached houses in Dresden site B