Concept and first results of the flagship EU smart city project City-zen

Panel: 4. Mobility, transport, and smart and sustainable cities

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Rudy A. Rooth, DNV GL, The Netherlands
Yvonne Boerakker, DNV GL, The Netherlands

Abstract

City-zen deals with the development of the city of the future. The project started its activities March 1, 2014. Project targets are the realization of more effective collaboration models, a methodology for development of smart cities, connection with industry and the demonstration to society of ambitious pilot projects.

The approach taken is the set-up of stakeholder teams in the demonstrator cities, to accelerate the realization of energy-efficient city development. This effort is supported by technology teams including industrial parties. Workshops aiming at decreasing the gap between innovation and implementation will be organized and knowledge-disclosing material will be developed by working groups in retrofitting, smart grids, and heating and cooling. Both technology and process improvement is included.

The demonstration cities Amsterdam and Grenoble have CO2 reduction goals for 2050 of 80%. All 22 demonstrators together have an estimated impact of 59000 tonne/year CO2 reduction. The demonstrators in Amsterdam and Grenoble include retrofitting to levels down to 53 kWh/m2, as well as fully-functional smart grid development (In Amsterdam for 10000 dwellings), electricity storage demonstrators, free cooling schemes and district heating efficiency improvements such as a low temperature water loop for using in connection with heat pumps.

The City-zen project recognizes the key position of citizens (behaviour), so ample attention is paid to involvement, dissemination and education of this group. Serious gaming is included to improve the collaboration between stakeholders. Key City-zen elements:

– A transparent cooperation model to allow for the transition towards the future integrated city for all infrastructure owners, the local authorities and housing companies

– A flexible and future proof infrastructure which invites and enables industries and city-zens to innovate, co-create and work together on new zero energy solutions

– An (improved) methodology to validate and optimise zero energy solutions

– A series of innovative demonstrations, including monitoring, showing that it all works

The paper will describe the concept in detail and initial results.