On the 2nd of July EDP NEW hosted the second of its R&D sessions, this time dedicated to Smart Cities.

In the first part, José Miguel Costa, the Positive Energy Communities area responsible, made a brief presentation of the session and of its expected outcomes, after which the two main smart cities projects in which EDP CNET is participating were presented: Luisa Serra presented SPARCS and João Formiga presented POCITYF. Following the presentations, there was a first round of lively Questions and Answers.

The second part of the webinar was a round table insightfully moderated by Francisco Lopes from EDP Distribuição, in which Marta Moreira from Câmara Municipal da Maia (SPARCS) and Rui Costa from Ubiwhere (Portuguese company experienced in Smart Cities) participated. Marta Moreira presented how the H2020 projects support the city strategy. She emphasized the synergies between SPARCS and Maia Living Lab, the integration of different technical domains, the opportunity to diagnose problems and to overcome technical gaps, namely by the access to far more advanced technologies and experienced partners.

Rui Costa from Ubiwhere, a company that provides smart city solutions imbedded in the urban landscape, addressed how the H2020 projects help the cities to address the most import challenges, namely energy, mobility and circular economy. He provided insights about Portuguese cities strategies and performance in comparison with other European ones, shedding light on the role that the private sector should play to achieve smarter and greener cities.

When questioned about Maia’s intention to respond to the EU’s “100 climate neutral cities by 2030” challenge Marta Moreira answered: “Probably not, because Maia has a highly industrialized territory that is crossed by several highways and is also home to Oporto's international airport. So, for us it would be a huge challenge to try, in 10 years, to reach the goals most cities are aiming to achieve in 30.” Prompted to identify the priority areas to be addressed if Maia was to respond, she added that “In the light of the latest data, that shows industry and mobility are the areas responsible for the majority of our emissions, we would definitely concentrate our efforts in those two domains.”

From this session, some positive spillovers already happened, namely the identification of technologies that are being already developed for POCITYF that might be interesting for Maia city, such as Building-Integrated PV, the Community Solar Farm and the P2P platform.

Kladno is launching the preparation of smart and energy efficient measures and projects. A comprehensive strategy for energy and climate will be key now, but in the parallel city is already designing specific projects, e.g. in the field of energy savings in buildings, launching of technologies for the use of renewable energy sources or electromobility concept.

Kladno is preparing a new Sustainable energy and climate Action which will form the basis for the city's energy policy for the future. In this context, the city is already proposing an overall energy vision which is one of the main tasks of the SPARCS project.

The work now focuses, among other things, on analytical, technical, energy but also socio-economic analysis of particular localities in the city, which would be transformed into an energy positive districts (PED). The in-depth analysis of the districts in Kladno is already underway, and it is, among others, a matter of multicriteria analysis which will show territorial eligibility and proper candidates in the city.

In connection with the development of energy policy, particular projects in the field of energy savings in city buildings are being prepared, e.g. using the energy performance contracting model including higher use of renewables sources. The city will thus be able to reflect the savings targets with regard to the virtual power plant concept, so complex projects in one place/territory could be sometimes difficult to implement.

For purpose of energy development, vision design and overall strategy preparation, as well as for planning individual investment actions, the city has established an open Platform (energy ecosystem) that brings together a number of representatives of the public, private (distributors and crucial private companies) or research sector, including regional and national partners. The dialogue with stakeholders was started by the city in cooperation with the Czech Technical University in Prague UCEEB, which significantly helps the city of Kladno to develop energy solutions. First meeting was held on July 23, thus official broad cooperation has started.

Thermal mapping in Kladno took place at the beginning of March as part of the international SPARCS project and we have and assessment of results. The airplane with the thermal camera took approximately five hours from a height of 800 meters to 3000 images covering the city's area of 44 km2. Experts had prepared a thermal orthophoto map of the entire city and landscape elements, as well as a map focused only on the floor plans of buildings using a more sensitive color scale, which highlighted heat leakages from individual buildings.

The outputs of the thermal mapping are the basis for future decision making about future investments in thermal insulation of city buildings, but also for the purpose of installation of photovoltaics or for other investments/modernization or reconstructions (e. g. leakages within heating systems).

As part of the thermal mapping, an assessment of 73 city buildings was also made. Calculation of the annual total sun exposure for the installation of photovoltaics on selected buildings was proposed and the results showed that this facility, which produces renewable energy sources, can be partially installed on buildings. An analysis and construction readiness of other buildings is currently underway together with physical inspection of the building.

Thermal maps will also serve as a background document for the buildings refurbishment, e.g. as a part Energy Performance contracting (EPC) which is carried out in the city as well.

Thermal maps were made available to the public and those who are interested may see individual objects on the map, whether family houses, apartment buildings or institutions. Maps are part of the City Geoportal. For the best orientation it is good to view a thermo map together with a topographic one. Users must take into account the weather conditions during the night, where mapping took place, had changed over time, so it is difficult to compare a family houses in different parts of city.

This year's General Assembly will feature high level speakers putting a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities facing cities following the COVID-19 experience, discussing European efforts to deliver a sustainable urban transition and continuing a dialogue on the upscaling and replication of Smart City solutions. There will also be unique and interactive sessions to support cities and projects working to boost their Smart City implementation, focusing on issues such as citizen engagement, business models, financing, the role of smart energy systems and more.

On 2-3 September the URBIS Smart City Fair will be organised in Brno, Czech Republic, mainly delivered by the City of Brno. Brno is a fellow city in the Horizon 2020 Lighthouse Project RUGGEDISED, led by the City of Rotterdam.

Despite many interesting recent developments, especially around smart ICT solutions and knowledge hubs (including universities), Central-Eastern European (CEE) municipalities, businesses and researchers are still highly underrepresented in the Smart City field and have much lower participation rates in the mentioned Horizon 2020 Lighthouse Projects.

The URBIS Smart City Fair, one of the largest events in the Smart City context in Europe, is therefore another excellent opportunity to show visible support to CEE countries and to get involved locally with the wide range of offers from within the Smart Cities & Communities stakeholder family, including above-mentioned Lighthouse Projects, partner initiatives and the Explore-Shape-Deal services of the Smart Cities Marketplace: practical knowledge, capacity building support, shaping of project ideas and access to finance via its Investor Network.

This will help to overcome the challenges, which still seem to hinder the implementation of smart solutions in CEE municipalities, for example the lack of resources: local governments struggle to allocate resources for the preparation and implementation of plans.

Taking into account the above and reinforced by the Covid-19 crisis, the General Assembly brings a unique opportunity to intensify the exchange of experiences and knowledge with CEE city administrations and smart city stakeholders and to engage CEE city administrations, companies and academia much better in the EIP-SCC Marketplace’s community and therefore in the European Smart Cities approach.

It will also give an opportunity to discuss the future of the EIP-SCC Marketplace and its strengthened collaboration with relevant initiatives such as Living-in.eu, CIVITAS and the Covenant of Mayors, but also EU activities such as the Horizon Europe Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities.

This, to make for maximised synergies and for enabling the EIP-SCC Marketplace to be a hub for relevant knowledge as well as replication and upscaling of proven solutions with the help of its Matchmaking mechanism and mainly (but not only) private financing, supplementing and supporting EU instruments.

The latter is of increasing relevance when taking into account the most recent EU policy developments as included in the European Green Deal - such as the Renovation Wave and specific activities in the area of Transport & Mobility as well as ICT- and the Recovery Plan including the suggested € 750 billion Next Generation EU package.