Energy

Lund applying for positive energy

July 13, 2018

Do you know what’s 535 pages long and worth 250 million SEK? The application for the Lighthouse-project Galaxity that revolves around the plus-energy field. Together with several European cities, Lund has petitioned for the major EU-application.

EU has reserved 77 billion euros for Horizon 2020, a science- and innovationprogram for, amongst other things, the transport- and energy sector between the years of 2014-2020. Found partly in this overarching program is the Smart City Lighthouse project where Lund and Padua in Italy have made a unison application to the project for the creation of plus-energy districts. Other actors who are involved in the application are operational in Denmark, Moldavia, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Ukraine, Hungary, Belgium and the Netherlands. In general, petitions or applications like these are made by just one or two cities who functions as “Lighthouses” and a host of other cities who pledges to assimilate and confer the results of the leading cities. The projects are thereafter to be used as guides (lighthouses) for the rest of Europe.

The application was initiated by Future by Lund but the envisioned project leader would be Markus Paulsson, energy strategist at Lund municipality, with the support of Kerstin Rubenson, project leader at Rise. Lund is well prepared for major projects concerning energy since a large portion of projects within the sector is already underway in the municipality. For example, Lund municipality are involved in the acclaimed Citified project concerning energy effectivisation of older residential buildings in Linero, Cool HD that deals with low temperature district heating in Brunnshög and the Smart City accelerator with its foundation in intelligent use of energy and integrated data-systems.

What would it mean to have a lighthouse-application approved?

- It would grant us the opportunity to continue the work with these issues from the angle of plus-energy districts. This suits well within our existing plans for Brunnshög, for example, our vision of having an energy production rate of 150% within the district. We’ve also made a modification to include up-and-running buildings, which is why we added the Medicon Village district where E.ON and Medicon Village have new and exciting solutions, says energy strategist Markus Paulsson.

In total, the parties involved are applying for around six million euros in the project, where Lund municipality would be the receiver of 800 000 euros.

Markus Paulsson, energy strategist at  Lund municipality, is the envisioned project leader for Galaxity.

The goal with the application for both Padua and Lund, is to generate methods to eliminate the dependencies on fossil fuels through the development of plus-energy districts (PED), that is, districts that create more energy than they use. One such resource is heating waste, where the Galaxity project aims to work with low temperatures such as 5-10 degrees celsius to heat or cool buildings. By integrating the buildings into a conjoined system, thermal energy can be used when and where it is needed. Energy could be stored when there’s an overproduction and utilised when in high demand.

- Should Galaxity be approved it would mean that Europe would be focusing on Lund in the energy sector. Lund is one of the first cities with plus-energy districts. Companies could view Lund as an attractive venue to invest in regarding new technology and sustainability endeavours or perhaps use Lund/Brunnshög as a testbed, foremost within the energy sector but also in other areas, say Kerstin Rubenson, project leader at Rise.

For Lund there’s three examples on PEDs that are on the fore. The southern part of Brunnshög with mixed residential zones and offices, the area next to the European Spallation Source (ESS) with educational facilities and the partly existent Medicon Village district with offices and residential buildings. Taking part in the application in addition to Lund municipality and Rise is E.ON, Kraftringen, LKF, Rise Viktoria, Schneider Electric, Keolis and ESS.

In the application there’s a clear underlined intention to include the city itself in the undertaking.

Outtakes from the application:

To succeed with the development and realisation of PEDs and the journey towards a energy-positive city, the measures that have been outlined has to be anchored within the city planning office by integrating them widely in the project. The measures should  therefore be in accordance with the goals of the city, national ambitions and with the goals that have been set up by the EU and the UN. For this purpose, Padua and Lund will create bold visionary statements for the cities that would guide the way from planning to major scale implementation of successful solutions until the year of 2050. And they will help the followers to do likewise.

What are the chances then that it’ll be Lund and Padua that will become the Lighthouses of Europe within the plus-energy field?

- That is a difficult question of course, but we believe we have a robust consortium in regards to the amount of follower-cities, companies and scientific institutions involved. We have able actors in Lund so the application to Lighthouse was perceived as the natural next step. This means that we can build upon what’s already there into something more sizeable. We’re counting on a decision to be made whether the project is approved or not some time before summer, says Peter Kisch, project leader at Future By Lund.

Footnote: Galaxity was taken from the french sci-fi comics “Linda & Valentin” that were drawn at the end of the 1960s by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières. Galaxity is the name of a future capital on Earth. The essence of the story is said to be “overcoming hardships and embracing and appreciating diversity”. (Source: Wikipedia)

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