A project to demonstrate optimised energy systems for high performance energy cities has just commenced. CITyFiED is a 5-year endeavour co-funded by the EU and led by Valladolid-based Fundación CARTIF. The consortium comprises 18 partners from Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Belgium and Germany.
The underlying purpose of CITyFiED is to develop a replicable, systemic and integrated strategy to transform European urban ecosystems into smart cities of the future. It will focus on reducing energy demand and GHG emissions while increasing the use of renewable energy sources. CITyFiED aims to achieve this by developing and implementing innovative technology and methodologies for building renovation, smart grids, district heating networks, and mobility.
There are four main strands to CITyFiED’s activities allowing the project to fully embrace all the facets of the challenges to be addressed:
- Large scale demonstrations: three holistic district renovations at Laguna de Duero-Valladolid (Spain), Soma (Turkey) and Lund (Sweden) deploying innovative and cost-effective technologies in order to boost overall energy efficiency and to slash environmental footprint. This will include a thorough retrofit of buildings, and the implementation of pioneering concepts to enhance heating and cooling solutions.
- Clustering cities to maximise replication potential. 18 cities from across Europe have expressed an interest to cluster in order to benefit from and roll out CITyFiED solutions.
- Developing cost-effective pioneering methodologies for planning, deploying and replicating energy efficient retrofit solutions. This will include District Heating facilities and integrating distributed electricity generation.
- A Community of Interest involving 40 cities, which will benefit from networking activities and information sharing on the CITyFiED retrofitting methodology
- Dissemination of a clear message to professionals, academia and also to the general public who need to be on-board with energy efficiency measures including mobility, since user behaviour needs to adopt a more sustainable approach.
The CITyFiED consortium drawing on partners from RTD, industry, public authority, exploitation and communication, expects to induce high replication potential thus accelerating smart retrofit uptake for low energy efficient district stock by 2020. The replication plan should lead to 100 potential projects in other cities with over 500,000 dwellings retrofitted in 10 years. Business models for energy providers and SMEs are set to benefit from CITyFiED solutions and there will be wider benefits for citizens and society as a whole. Furthermore, the project outcomes will inform policy at European level and will result in raising standards in both the energy and building sectors.
Project coordinator Fundación CARTIF are due to host the kick-off meeting at their Valladolid base on 28-30 April, including work sessions specific to each of the three demonstration sites.
This new European project thus embarks on a five-year period to directly help move Europe towards more sustainable, efficient and healthy urban spaces for European citizens.