Smart and Inclusive Solutions for a Better Life in Urban Districts

Project Information

SMARTER TOGETHER

Grant agreement ID: 691876

DOI

10.3030/691876

Project closed

EC signature date 14 December 2015

Start date 1 February 2016

End date 31 July 2021

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 29 699 309,11

EU contribution

€ 24 742 978,64

Coordinated by

LYON CONFLUENCE
France

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - SMARTER TOGETHER (Smart and Inclusive Solutions for a Better Life in Urban Districts)

Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2021-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Sustainable development builds on people in integrated, inclusive societies that develop in partnership and foster dialogue among all parties – being ‘smarter together’. It equally builds on modern technologies and constant innovation as key ingredient at the service of people, societal development and economic transformation. SMARTER TOGETHER shares this fundamental values and philosophy and brings together the European Lighthouse cities Lyon, Munich and Vienna as well as the Follower cities Santiago de Compostela, Sofia and Venice. With Kyiv and Yokohama also two observer cities are on board and bring in the perspective of cities from East Europe and Asia.

SMARTER TOGETHER’s overarching vision is to find the right balance between smart technologies on the one hand and organisational and governance dimensions on the other in order to deliver smart and inclusive solutions and to improve citizen’s quality of life.

SMARTER TOGETHER aimed to deliver 5 clusters of co-created and replicable integrated smart solutions: (1) Living labs for citizen engagement, (2) Holistic refurbishment for low energy districts addressing public as well as private housing, (3) District heating and renewable energies for low energy districts, (4) Smart Data management platform and smart services for integrated infrastructures and (5) E-mobility solutions for sustainable mobility.
The demonstrations in the three Lighthouse cities are stimulated by local Urban Living Labs and are embedded in substantial collective cross-cities peer-to-peer learning, and intensive replication and dissemination efforts to maximize the project’s impacts.

The proposed solutions have been expected to result in:
▪ > 151 800 m2 of refurbished housing estate, mostly social housing, with an energy and CO2 reduction of > 50%;
▪ 14,6 MW of newly installed renewable capacity in the districts;
▪ 10 to 15 new e-mobility solutions – for passengers as well as freight,
▪ An overall CO2 reduction of > 60 %
▪ 130 million EUR investments in the Lighthouse areas
▪ Creating 1,400 new jobs only from the investments in the buildings sector.

In the end, it appears that the results of SMARTER TOGETHER are in line with the cities’ overall strategies and that the project has enabled initiatives that would not have taken place otherwise (e.g. renovation of condominiums, or deployment of district heating network substations).

Furthermore, SMARTER TOGETHER has paved the way towards greater cross-collaboration between projects and more importantly between European cities and experts. The achievements have been critical for many partners. The SMARTER TOGETHER environment has enabled them to showcase their solutions and to learn from one another, adjusting their demonstrators to better fit their goals and strategies and helping to prepare for what technologies could come next.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

All promised activities have been implemented:
▪ Setting up the transversal tools and activities to provide the framework, knowledge base, management tools and peer-to-peer exchange process (WP1-2-10).
▪ Rolling out the implementation activities scheduled in demonstration workpackages (WP3-4-5).
▪ Setting up the monitoring infrastructure in the LHC, collecting and evaluating data (WP6)
▪ Developing Integrated Replication Strategies for FC (WP7)
▪ Engaging the replication process, disseminating and communicating the results of the project. SMARTER TOGETHER has been a front-runner in fostering cross-collaboration with the Smart Cities and Communities Lighthouse Group (SCC-LG), engaging common actions and publishing joint papers (WP8-9).

Beyond the impact of demonstration activities, SMARTER TOGETHER has developed 16 projects that have impacted their territories in 4 main fields: Mobility, Data-driven tools for cities, Energy decision-making tools for cities and Energy management tools for citizens and communities. An Exploitation plan has been developed to foster their roll-out in the next years.

Intense efforts have been invested into scaling up and replication.
▪ An updated Replication toolkit has made publicly available, disseminating soft and hard measures towards the implementation of the measures implemented by the Lighthouse cities.
▪ The SPL Lyon Confluence will continue its efforts towards the development of new business models on energy retrofitting to support the strategy of the Lyon Metropolis. The CMS developed within SMARTER TOGETHER will be scaled up to the rest of the metropolitan territory. At the local level, SPL will develop a digital twin of Confluence district and pursue the replication of energy communities, urban logistics and last-mile delivery.
▪ In continuation of SMARTER TOGETHER, Vienna launched in September 2020 a new urban renewal initiative WieNeu+, which promotes holistic urban renewal at neighbourhood level.
▪ Munich, along with Hamburg and Leipzig, was granted funding for the application “Connected Urban Twins (CUT) – Urban Data Platforms and Digital Twins for Integrated Urban Development and Digitalisation” In September 2020 as part of the German Federal Government’s programme for smart city model projects, building upon SMARTER TOGETHER results on Digital Twins.
▪ The Follower cities have started implementing their Integrated Replication Strategies, rolling out over 160 M€ of investments in smart city solutions and infrastructure.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SMARTER TOGETHER has delivered the promised features and exceeded the promised impacts:

LARGE SCALE DEMONSTRATION: The goal for refurbishment works has been reached with the refurbishment of over 175,160 m² (115% initial target), including a diverse building portfolio in terms of ownership, use and age. The final energy saving and CO2-emission reductions amount respectively to 37.5 kWh/m2.a and 12 kg-CO2/m2.

USER-CENTRIC INNOVATION: Co-creation activities with the population have been extremely productive in the three Urban Living Labs, delivering promising results in terms of best practices and insights on citizen participation, co-creation, user-centric business model, etc.

LOW ENERGY DISTRICT APPROACH: 34 MW of new RES heating capacity have been commissioned (225 % initial target) while reaching 1,8 MW of new RES electricity production (85%). Altogether, the realized solutions for low energy districts in the 3 LHCs will annually save around 4,000 MWh/a, generate 1,145 MWh/a of RES while reducing around 1,496 tCO2/a of CO2-emission.

NEXT GENERATION DISTRICT HEATING: Over 206,000 m2 of floor space have been connected to the district heating in the three cities (240% initial target), heated with renewable energy sources (wood, geothermal, solar thermal).

CITIZEN-ORIENTED DATA PLATFORMS: Interoperable, non-vendor lock-in ICT platforms commissioned in all three LHC have been continuously enhanced with new sets of data and visualization tools. Data-sharing agreements have been signed with providers as data flows from implemented smart meters, lamppost sensors, mobility solutions, RES production systems and refurbished buildings.

E-MOBILITY INTEGRATION: Mobility services have been deployed in full scale. Almost all promised mobility stations have been commissioned, reaching the targets of e-vehicles and charging stations with a total annual distance travelled with e-vehicles reaching 125,800 km. All together, the mobility solutions implemented in the 3 LHCs will annually save around 46,6 MWh/a while reducing around 15 tCO2/a.

Smarter Together WP leaders & coordination team © Landeshauptstadt München / Tobias Hase

Smarter Together follower cities

Smarter Together logo

Smarter Together lighthouse cities

Smarter Together partners © Landeshauptstadt München / Tobias Hase