Energy efficient pathway for the city transformation: enabling a positive future

Project Information

MAKING-CITY

Grant agreement ID: 824418

DOI

10.3030/824418

Project closed

EC signature date 14 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 30 November 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 19 983 808,68

EU contribution

€ 18 089 582,76

Coordinated by

FUNDACION CARTIF
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - MAKING-CITY (Energy efficient pathway for the city transformation: enabling a positive future)

Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2024-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The MAKING-CITY goals are established around two main pillars: the Positive Energy District (PED) and the Energy Transition, which is currently a pillar for fighting against climate change. Therefore, our main objective has been to demonstrate the PED concept and develop new integrated strategies to address the urban energy system transformation towards low carbon cities, with this PED approach as the core of the urban energy transition pathway.

During its 72 months of execution, MAKING-CITY has deployed 3 real scale demo PEDs in its Lighthouses cities (2 in Groningen - Netherlands and 1 in Oulu – Finland) and replicate the PED concept in its 6 Follower cities: León (Spain), Bassano del Grappa (Italy), Kadıköy (Turkey), Trenčín (Slovakia), Vidin (Bulgaria) and Lublin (Poland).

Apart from the PEDs developed in the Lighthouse cities and the PED replication plans in the Follower ones, the advanced urban planning has been focused for all cities involved in the project, which address the development of an overall transformation process with horizon set up on 2050. In MAKING-CITY, a change at organizational level has been promoted by the creation of a City Planning Office that is supported with the appropriate tools to address a new and really innovative urban planning approach. After this and a strong training process, the project is addressing a very innovative and ambitious roadmap to the cities with a long-term horizon, 2050.

Since PED was a relative recent concept when MAKING-CITY started to run, the PED definition adopted has been: “A Positive Energy District is an urban area with clear boundaries, consisting on buildings of different typologies that actively manage the energy flow between them and the larger energy system to reach an annual positive energy balance”. Therefore, one of the most important aspects to be considered is the Annual Energy Balance calculation procedure.

The PED approach is a solid and ambitious strategy that has been completed with long term urban planning to ensure upscaling and fostering higher impacts. The Long-term City Vision has been designed for our 8 cities with a 2050 horizon that guarantees a seamless city transformation from planning to implementation and further upscaling.

After the implementation carried out in our cities, the validation has been done within the definition of a rigorous evaluation procedure, based on standard KPIs, and in which the associated impacts have been tested and the results disseminated.

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

During the execution of the project specific the following main achievements have been carried out:
• TThe methodological framework for the Advanced Long-Term Planning has been defined, the guidelines to organize and implement Sustainable Energy Planning in cities are ready, and the Long-term city plans provided for our 8 cities.
• The capacity building toolbox has been developed comprising a combination of a mix of complementary policy instruments tailored to fit the capacity building needs of each city to give effect to the defined capacity building strategy.
• 3 demo PEDs have been implemented in the Lighthouse cities. A wide typology of actions has been deployed through the districts.
• Robust monitoring and evaluation protocols have been stablished for each demo cities to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the project actions compared to the initial situation, initial objectives and expected results.
• The methodology for PED design and for the calculation of the annual energy balance in a PED have been developed. Guidelines for the easy implementation of both procedures have been published to allow its use by other external cities.
• Areas for implementing the PED methodologies studied and selected in the follower cities. PEDs have been designed inside them and are valorised from the financial point of view.
• 8 Replication and Upscaling plans have been defined in our cities to foster the further success of the PED
• Stakeholders involved in PEDs have been mapped and their individual interests and interactions have been analysed in order to provide a framework to be used for the development of business models in the Lighthouse cities and for replication activities in Follower cities and beyond.
• The collaboration with Lighthouse framework and other entities has been completely stablished. National collaboration has been deployed into our cities’ countries through the GBCs. The MAKING-CITY Think Tank, Reflect, has been launched to push the debate on PEDs.
• Dissemination material have been created according to the D&C plan. Regular newsletter shows the project results. Videos about project challenges ready in the media channels. Mid-term and final events, Innovation Camps and local dissemination events have been used to spread the knowledge developed inside the project. The MAKING-CITY toolkit and the PED chatbot compile all of this knowledge.

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)

The final part of the project has been crucial for MAKING-CITY project: the 3 PEDs have been finalished and their monitoring and evaluation phases have been carried out accoding to the process stablised in the proyect. Both cities have achieved reductions in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while improving renewable energy production and storage.

Although different, the 3 PED concepts converge in the extensive use of PV panels and geothermal resources as the most appropriate way to achieve positive energy balance, combining highly efficient buildings with very efficient HVAC elements as heat pumps, supported by the necessary energy storage systems to maximize RES use. The expected values for the demos, 80 % of RES share and 63 % of improvement against national regulation values, are the reference to replicate and upscale the concept.

In terms of impacts, beyond the overall figures mentioned earlier, it is important to highlight in the case of Groningen, north PED has reached 76,37% of thermal energy savings meanwhile the south PED provides savings of 94,91% in thermal energy and 61,36% of electricity. In the case of Oulu PED these values have reached 62,54% of savings in thermal energy and 35,86% in electrical energy.

Relating RES production, self-supply is one of the main values relevant to take into consideration in a PED evaluation. The degree of thermal energy self-supply based on RES has been 77,13% in Oulu and 99,98% and 71,67% in Groningen north and south respectivelly. In the case of electricity this values have been 6,04% for Oulu and 43,25% and 95,49% for Groningen.

With these previous considerations, the GHG emissions in terms of kg CO2 eq/year m2 have passed in Groningen North PED from 44,82 to 38,99 and in South PED from 101,07 to 11,30 providing values of reduction of 13,01% and 88.81% respectively. In the case of Oulu, the reduction has been 76,3%.

From a social perspective, the MAKING-CITY project has played a key role in engaging stakeholders in urban transformation through the Capacity Building programme and dissemination tools deployed in the project. This engagement increases satisfaction with project outcomes, the adoption of positive behaviors, and a heightened awareness of sustainability.

MAKING-CITY in a nutshell