FORESIGHT 01 - selected teaser

CLIMATE & ENERGY BUSINESS DENMARK

P O W E R F U L LY B A L A N C E D HEAT & POWER

TRANSITION

How to integrate renewable energy

POLICY

OECD: Your assumptions might be wrong

CITIES

Saving money with double functions

BUSINESS

The next finance models

POWER HUNGRY

FORESIGHT 01 SUMMER / AUTUMN 2016

PUBLISHER First Purple Publishing A/S Member of the Association of Danish Media CONTACT CEO Kasper Thejll-Karstensen First Purple Publishing A/S +45 3119 4000 kk@firstpurple.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Peter Bjerregaard, newsdesk@foresightdk.com EDITORIAL ADVISER & CONTENT EDITOR Lyn Harrison PROJECT MANAGEMENT Tine Presterud ART DIRECTOR Trine Natskår PHOTO Lars Just Tine Sletting Michael Bothager Adam Mørk Ole Hartmann Schmidt COVER PHOTO Lars Just PRODUCTION Sune Gudmundsson Sven Johannesen Lasse Wamsler Jonas A. Bruun Rune Kier Julie Søgaard Rasmus Thirup Beck Karin Jensen Jesper Tornbjerg Eskil Meinhardt Hansen Sofie Buch Hoyer

RESEARCH Mads Krarup Tim Dencker CCO Kristian Dickow SALES Daniel Christensen Jan Skov Troels Thomsen CIRCULATION 24.500 PRINT Stibo Printing Solutions FORESIGHT is made in Denmark and published quarterly ADVERTISING For rates and our editorial calendar contact booking@foresightdk.com or +45 3119 4000 FORESIGHT SUBSCRIPTION 1 year (4 issues) /€60 (including shipping worldwide) For our full range of subscription offers, including digital only or print and digital combined, visit foresightdk.com FORESIGHT is independent of outside economic and political interests and assumes no responsibility for claims made by advertisers. Material from the publiction may not be reproduced, distributed or stored in any form without the publisher’s written permission.

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FORESIGHT ONLINE Website: www.foresightdk.com / Twitter: @foresightdk Instagram: @foresightdk / Facebook: /foresightdk Email: info@foresightdk.com

We must not squander the potential of green growth After cutting a conversation short with the Nicaraguan delegation, Laurent Fabius, French foreign minister and president of the COP21 climate negotiations, hastily closed the summit with a bang of his gavel in December. The Paris accord was adopted and a burst of relief filled the Le Bourget plenary room.

To have any chance of meeting the target of keeping global temperatures well below two degrees Celsius, divorcing economic growth from rising carbon emissions is essential. Whether this turns out to be a happy divorce depends on business leaders, politicians and citizens alike. In transforming our economies, first and foremost it is essential to change how energy is produced and how it is consumed.

We have designed this magazine for the reader who is curious about this transformation and how it affects the world we live in. We have named the magazine FORESIGHT because our aim is to help you navigate the modern world of energy by providing insights from the people and businesses that have had the foresight to change their course and developed novel solutions that deserve a broader audience.

This first issue demonstrates how a country can integrate renewables into the system without compromising security of supply (see pages 18-26), how new types of financing models ease access to capital for energy projects (pages 2829), how a sewage treatment plant has got itself a part time job as a power producer (pages 48-49), how policy-makers might be wrong in their assumptions about what makes a competitive economy (pages 63-65), plus much more.

The ambition and vision of FORESIGHT is essentially to take part in the race between how fast environmental challenges develop and how fast solutions advance. We believe that enlightened and critical journalism can help speed the pace at which solutions are adopted.

We hope you enjoy the read.

ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE MAGAZINE PRODUCTION Using paper from sustainably managed forests.

Postal deliveries of single copies in a 100% biodegradable plastic wrapper.

NORDIC

Peter Bjerregaard

LABEL AL

E

IRONMEN T NV

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

541-004 PRINTED MATTER

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FORESIGHT

Content

KNOWLEDGE MAKING BIOFUELS AND CHEMICALS FROM SUNLIGHT

A new discovery may leapfrog over many existing technologies and speed the transition from fossil fuels Page 10

BIG PICTURE

Two new wind turbines produce enough power for 18.000 households.

TRANSITION

CITIES

POWERFULLY BALANCED

How to integrate renewables into an energy system while keeping lights on.

COPENHAGEN FIRMS UP A FLUFFY CONCEPT

Collecting and mining data lies at the heart of making cities smarter.

Page 18

Page 32

PRICE SIGNALS SPUR FLEXIBILITY

URBAN LANDSCAPES FOR A WETTER FUTURE

Flexibility in supply and demand comes with a price tag but the right incentives get the job done.

Page 24

Shallow drainage architecture can save money. And teach children about the Fibonacci spiral.

Page 38

Page 14

INDIA TAKES BUMPY ROAD TO SMARTNESS

BUSINESS INNOVATIVE NEW MODELS BRING DIVIDENDS

The future is urban and India wants to pave the way by building 100 new smart cities by 2020.

Sophisticated financing raises institutional investor confidence in renewables.

Page 42

Page 28

Turning muck into money is no problem for this sewage treatment plant, which produces more energy than it consumes.

A HARD DAY’S WORK

How do you feel about how things are done around here?

POLICY REDIRECTING THE GLOBAL FLOW OF MONEY

Developing countries need around $300 billion annually by 2020 to limit their carbon emissions.

Page 62

YOUR ASSUMPTIONS MIGHT BE WRONG

Environmental regulation does not make countries uncompetitive, says the OECD. Page 63

A FISCAL STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Government budgets are hooked on fossil-fuel derived tax revenues.

Making the break is tough.

Page 66

SELF SUFFICIENT SEWAGE

Page 48

REALITY SURPRISED US

On energy trends the IEA admits that prediction is difficult – especially of the future Page 67

Page 31

FORESIGHT

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FORESIGHT

TEXT Jesper Tornbjerg / PHOTO Lars Just

Transition

A FULLY INTEGRATED RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEM

P O W E R F U L LY BALANCED At any given moment wind power supplies between zero and 140% of Denmark’s electricity. A robust grid network, flexible operation of power production and a well functioning electricity network make sure the lights stay on, also in hurricane-force winds.

C

hanging an entire energy system is never going to be an easy job. Denmark, however, has long demonstrated that large-scale integration of wind energy into the national grid requires no compromise with security of supply. Electricity is on tap to Danes 99.997% of the time, the highest availability in Europe.

By 2020 this Nordic country will increase the proportion of wind generation in its electricity supply to over 50%, from 42% in 2015, with no relaxation of its tough quality standards. Internationally, recognition is growing that wind can play a significant part in transitioning to a low carbon economy. The International Energy Agency, inspired by Denmark’s example, states that for many countries there are no technical barriers to integrating at least 40% wind in the supply mix, provided sufficient flexibility is built into the power system to balance the ups and downs of wind generation. The record for wind’s share of supply in Denmark is currently 140%; theoretically, that share can drop to zero.

The key to Denmark’s transition to climate-friendly wind energy, without sacrificing supply security, is a well functioning market, a muscular electrical infrastructure, flexible combined heat and power (CHP) stations and balancing Norwegian hydro power with Danish wind production, to mutual benefit.

THE ULTIMATE TEST Only once in the recent past has Denmark’s power system come close to collapse: on Friday October 28, FORESIGHT

2013. From the middle of the day and without warning a ferocious storm swept west to east across the north-west European mainland, complete with hurricane force gusts. For the entire region’s power system it was the ultimate test.

Staff at Danish power system operator Energinet.dk were beginning to head off for the weekend, among them Anders Egebjerg Palsgaard. As the afternoon drew to a close, he was glad to have got safely home to the city of Odense in Funen, in the centre of Denmark, having picked up his two small children and wife Eva on the way. The wind continued to build.

Outside trees were snapping like matchwood and radio warnings told people to stay indoors. Off watch, Palsgaard was settling down to a family evening when his mobile phone buzzed. “Yes, I’m home in Odense,” he responded to his boss’s question asking if he had reached home safely. The call, however, was about more than concern for an employee. Energinet.dk is used to managing a power system with lots of wind energy.

Each year the system operator breaks new records for how much fluctuating electricity production it can deal with. The next challenge to come is integration of power from a big new 400 MW addition to the offshore turbines at Horns Rev. “Are you able to drive out to Fraugde?” asked the boss. Palsgaard hesitated. “It’s blowing a lot. Can’t it wait?” After a moment’s pause the barked command from Energinet.dk’s control room (which lost its roof in the same storm) left no room for doubt. “It’s now!”

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DISAPPEARING WIND PRODUCTION Denmark’s power system is split in two halves, west and east, linked by a high voltage subsea transmission cable under the Great Belt between Funen and Zealand, where Copenhagen is located (illustration).

On his way to the Fraugde transformer station, at the cable’s Funen end, Palsgaard had no idea that before long he would avert disconnection of 500,000 electricity consumers in Zealand.

Wind turbines are typically programmed to stop production when winds reach 25 metres a second, to protect them from damage. When high winds are forecast, the system operator plans for wind turbine outages. On this particular Friday no storm had been forecast and significant volumes of power were disappearing off the network unexpectedly. The 200 MW of existing Horns Rev offshore capacity dropped to zero as the storm rolled in, followed not long after by the Anholt offshore plant, located north of the Great Belt, dropping from its full 400 MW to 150 MW in a matter of minutes. Even so, neither of these two events were critical for the power system. Far more difficult to manage were the cable outages across the region as power lines were hit by trees, roof tiles and other flying objects.

Every storm tests the robustness of electricity grids. Six weeks later a new storm forced several centralised power blocks offline for safety reasons.

Seawater, pressured through the narrow neck of the Baltic Sea by storm force winds, led to exceptionally high and low tides, putting plant cooling systems at risk. Water for cooling is critical for power generation at thermal plant and its loss is not an infrequent problem for both coal and nuclear stations in France and Germany, especially in summer months when rivers can run low.

MINUTES FROM COLLAPSE On that fateful Friday in October 2013 the power system in eastern Denmark was minutes from total collapse, the near victim of an extraordinary set of circumstances. A fallen tree had put a vital high-tension cable out of action. The 280 MW of reserve power at the Kyndby station was out of operation. The 600 MW Kontek subsea cable between east Denmark and Germany was down due to a grid fault on the German side. Two offshore wind plant off Zealand had been taken offline (a precautionary measure to avoid risk of a longer-term loss of production) and the Great Belt cable had lost its capacity to deliver power to the eastern half of the country.

Palsgaard was struggling, too. Fallen trees had blocked the Funen motorway going east and he was forced onto B-roads to reach the transformer station at Fraugde. Two high voltage cables essential for feeding electricity to the cooling system at the Fraugde substa6

DENMARK'S HIGH VOLTAGE TRANSMISSIOIN AND INTERNATIONAL INTERCONNECTORS Norway

Sweden

North Sea

Kattegat Sea

JUTLAND

Fraugde ZEALAND FUNEN

Germany

Decentralised CHP

Interconnector (DC)

Centralised CHP

Interconnector (AC)

Onshore wind turbine Offshore wind stations

tion had been taken out by falling trees. A 600 MW connection point requires industrial scale cooling to avoid it going up in smoke. Palsgaard’s task was to reconnect the station’s electricity supply and with it the capacity of the Great Belt cable.

“I couldn’t get into the control cabinet. I didn’t have any tools. I was running in small circles. There was quite a bit of panic,” he recalls. Beads of sweat broke out and his hands were shaking. The situation was saved when across an unstable mobile phone connection he managed to reach a colleague who opFORESIGHT

Copenhagen

Transition

Job creation The offshore wind power industry is a serious consumer of quality steel plates, particularly for jacket foundations and wind turbine towers. The steady demand from offshore wind turbine construction in Northern Europe helps keeps workers busy at NLMK DanSteel A/S in FrederiksvĂŚrk, Denmark, formerly known as Danish Steel Works Ltd

FORESIGHT

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erated the transformer station on a daily basis.

Denmark and probably areas of neighbouring countries avoided a costly widespread blackout.

“Yep, that was a day of red hot phones. We weren’t short of energy but many cables failed,” says Energinet.dk’s managing director Peder Andreasen. In crisis situations his focus is on stabilising production, spreading it among as many sources as possible and communicating clearly with colleagues in Denmark’s neighbouring countries, Norway and Sweden to the north and east and Germany to the south.

When hurricane force winds hit the region, central power stations are required to operate with least possible risk. To reduce stress on the high voltage transmission network, local CHP plant are asked to step up production of power fed into the low voltage distribution lines. The around 5900 wind turbines in Denmark, along with wind turbines in neighbouring countries, are widely spread across the region.

They contribute to system stability as a storm passes through, with the highest winds hitting blocks of wind turbines at different times. Turbines operating at full capacity in the strong winds compensate for

Learning from experience As well as being the world’s largest coal consumer, China is also the largest investor in renewables. But it aims to cap national emissions by 2030, at the latest. To reach that target, China is working with partners to help it transition to a green economy.

One of those is Denmark and the lessons it can learn in how to manage high proportions of varying generation on a power system without compromising security of supply.

Making conventional power plant more flexible is of particular interest, says Wang Zhongying of China’s National Renewable Energy Centre (NREC).

“My objective is to transform our coal-fired power stations towards flexibility while maintaining a stable electricity system,” he says. Structuring a market that rewards flexibility by pricing electricity high when it is needed most, or low when it is not needed, is the key to that transformation. Wang expects China to move to that pricing mechanism within five to ten years. China is also intending to go a step further than most other energy markets and include external costs of pollution in market prices, advised by CNREC. China is looking to two main tools to balance supply and demand: flexible thermal power stations and a move to electric vehicles. “By 2050 China will have 500 million cars. We estimate that 400 million of them will be electric, so that will provide huge energy storage potential,” states Wang.

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those shutting down. The offline turbines come back up again as the storm rolls on, triggering a new wave of shutdowns.

STRONGER WEAK LINKS Seldom is Denmark hit by hurricanes, but even everyday operation requires a strong grid infrastructure and well-functioning market for successful integration of wind, solar and all other forms of energy production, says Andreasen.

“The infrastructure has to be readied for renewable energy. You have to know how much is coming, what type and when. At the same time it’s a good idea to balance production over large geographic areas, which increases the value of renewable energy, reducing the need for financial support,” he adds. He is also chairman of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity, known as ENTSO-E, which works for cross-border integration of power systems.

Denmark’s north-south interconnections, to Norway and Germany, play an important role in reducing the cost of integrating wind energy. During a hard blow in Denmark, Norway imports electricity from its southern neighbour to pump up its hydro reserves and in periods of low winds in Denmark, Norway exports power. Norway, almost totally reliant on hydro, has particular use for wind energy imports during periods when its hydro reserves are frozen in the windy winter months.

In the south of Denmark a new high voltage subsea link is to connect the country directly to the Netherlands, circumventing transmission bottlenecks in Germany caused by its lack of sufficient north-south cable capacity within the country. Eurelectric, a Brussels-based electricity industry association, reports that the German problem is unlikely to be resolved this side of 2025.

“It's a good idea to balance production over large geographic areas, which increases the value of renewable energy, reducing the need for financial support” The technical challenges posed by insufficient transmission capacity to send power south from windy northern Germany are so big that the region’s system operator, TenneT, has frequently barred the way for exports of Danish electricity. During the first three months of 2016, just 5% of the 1800 MW of transmission capacity between the two countries was open for Danish exports. � FORESIGHT

Transition

SHARE OF VARIABLE RENEWABLE ENERGY GENERATION IN 2014 AND 2020 FOR SELECTED COUNTRIES

50%

Additional share PV 2020 Additional share wind 2020

40%

Share PV 2014 Share wind 2014

30%

20%

10%

0%

As if that were not problematic enough, during the past winter TenneT had to pay stiff market prices to Danish production units in compensation for requiring them to reduce output to make room on the Danish system for German exports of excess generation.

In practice, this “special regulation” is achieved by stopping production, including from wind turbines, or storing the extra power as hot water in Denmark’s purpose-built giant immersion tanks located at thermal power stations. Wind turbine owners receive compensation for lost earnings from Germany’s electricity consumers.

The challenge for Europe is to integrate energy supply and consumption in a single system. “We have to learn to think across borders, also for power system development and regulation for renewable energy. In terms of transmission cables the market does not sufficiently hang together—some countries have not reinforced their grids in time. That is proving to be costly and it is holding back the green energy transition,” says Andreasen. •

Source: OECD/IEA 2016

DRAMATIC TIMELINE OF A BLACKOUT AVOIDED

Friday October 28, 2013 is not a day that anybody in the Energinet.dk control room at the time is going to forget.

Meteorologists are usually well on top of weather events 24 hours ahead, including the likely strength of the wind. But not this time. A surprisingly severe storm blew in from the North Sea, crossing Denmark from west to east and bringing with it hurricane force gusts of over 53 metres a second.

14.41: One of two 400 kV transmission lines between Denmark and Germany goes offline, a result of storm damage 30 kilometres south of the border.

12.50: Offshore winds turbines at Horns Rev off the Danish west coast are hit by winds higher than they are designed for. They automatically shut down to wait for the danger to pass. The Danish system loses 200 MW of capacity.

15.30: The storm reaches the Kattegat Sea in north central Denmark, home to the Anholt offshore wind station. It takes just 15 minutes for the 400 MW capacity of Anholt to drop to 150 MW.

13.57: First reports of cable outages start flooding into the system control room at Energinet.dk. Several small towns are hit by short-lived supply interruptions. A main north-south transmission link drops out.

14.45: Denmark exports 800 MW to Norway. Between 15.00 and 16.00, 1000 MW of onshore turbines are offline in western Denmark and another 500 MW in eastern Denmark. Exports to Norway are reduced by two times 400 MW to zero.

15.42: The main subsea transmission link between the west and east of Denmark goes down, the result of a transformer station problem at the western end. Trees falling on cables have cut the electricity supply to its cooling system.

15.45: Extra capacity from decentralised CHP plant is activated, bringing 500 MW on line within 15 minutes. Export from east Denmark to Sweden is cut by 450 MW over a ten minute period.

17.00: The Danish system operator, Energinet.dk, asks electricity supply companies DONG Energy and SEAS-NVE to prepare for a rolling disconnection of 500,000 electricity customers.

16.20: Winds out in the North Sea drop and the wind turbines at Horns Rev start feeding power into the grid once more, reducing the strain on the western grid.

17.25: Technicians succeed in bringing the main subsea transmission cable linking west and east Denmark back up at into operation.

16.21: A tree falls onto a 132 kV cable in Zealand, the eastern half of Denmark. Moments later 280 MW of capacity is lost when the Kyndby reserve power plant drops out of action, then the high voltage Kontek connection between east Denmark and Germany goes down due to a fault on the German side. Two offshore wind stations off Zealand are shut down to avoid risk of an uncontrolled total loss of their production. The entire east of Denmark becomes reliant on power imports from Sweden.

17.44: Germany brings the 400 kV transmission line crossing the German-Danish land border on the North Sea side of the country back online. The supply situation in western Denmark stabilises.

FORESIGHT

17.54: The German-Danish Kontek connection comes up again.

18.14: The Kyndby reserve plant is back in action and normal operation returns to eastern Denmark.

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URBAN LANDSCAPES FOR A WETTER

Heavier cloudbursts, rising sea levels, more flooding. This is the outlook for many urban areas. City councils, architects and engineers are responding to the challenges of a wetter future by looking at ways to adapt the urban landscape rather than expanding traditional underground drainage solutions. The approach saves money and creates better urban spaces.

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FORESIGHT

TEXT Julie Søgaard / PHOTO Lars Just

FUTURE

Cities

more than that. Appearances can deceive, however, for it also has a vital utilitarian function. The spiral and it accompanying shallow drainage components act as a comprehensive rainwater collection system. In heavy cloudbursts, the sudden flooding that used to lead to massive overflows of water pouring through Frederiksberg, a suburb of central Copenhagen, is now prevented.

Flash floods generally used to be one-in-a-hundred year occurrences but now they happen double as often, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute.

“In 2011 there was a very heavy cloudburst. The road just next to this square is a low point in the area. All the water ended up here and caused a lot of damage,” says Marianne Levinsen, pointing to a charming row of old houses.

Levinsen is a Danish landscape architect with her own small company. After the cloudburst, her team and engineers from Danish consultancy Niras were hired by the local authority and water utility serving Frederiksberg. Their mission was to develop a solution that included water detention basins and soakaways.

Not only should the solution solve the water inundation problem, but also double as a civic amenity area.

THIRSTY BLACKCURRANTS

P

icture a corner of a city park developed as an amenity area in the shape of a giant shallow bowl. The bowl is bordered by a low double-wall forming a narrow channel that traces the spiral arch pattern of a snail shell. Clear water runs through the channel and collects at the bottom of the bowl. Here it seeps into shallow drainage holes to be pumped up in fountains close by.

To the adults sipping coffee while kids play on the spiral wall, this piece of beautifully shaped city art might appear to be no

Long before the area’s more recent life, it was a turning point for trams and for this reason is locally known as “Sløjfen,” meaning “The Loop.” Today, Sløjfen forms a corner of Frederiksberg’s Lindevangs park.

“A long, deep ditch now runs alongside the park. Some of the floods of water resulting from cloudbursts will be led to this ditch to be drained away. Not many plants can survive such treatment, but blackcurrant bushes can tolerate both dry and very wet conditions. So we planted thousands of blackcurrant bushes in the ditch,” says Levinsen.

Blackcurrant picking has become a popular summer activity among the locals who much prefer the bushes to the thicket of trees and scrubs they replaced, she says. “The park is more open and inviting and the neighbours are now able to look into the park and enjoy the view of the wonderful old trees.”

During a cloudburst, the ditch fills with water, which is led away in drainage pipes running under a large grassed depression in the park. The depression’s resemblance to a natural amphitheatre is strengthened by the stage-like concreted area at its centre.

Here the drainage water emerges and forms a temporary pond.

Once the water evaporates, the sediment remaining can be easily removed.

“It’s very practical,” says Levinsen. “When dry the concreted area can be used for play, music and other activities.” Indeed, children are taken to the park to learn about Fibonacci spirals and the mathematics and physics that lie behind them, while a smaller model of the ditch is used in teaching hydrology, adds Levinsen, with reference to a nearby primary school and its ethos of teaching children through their own activity. “So this project is great for them, too.”

Levinsen says the project is significantly cheaper than conventional drainage, which would have required the water utility

FORESIGHT

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Cities

company to lay down pipes and pumps and create reservoirs underground at a cost of €6.9 million. The shallow drainage solution cost €4.6 million, a saving of 33%, and because it doubles as a civic amenity area the bill can be shared with the Frederiksberg local authority.

Copenhagen’s city authority plans to spend €1.5 billion on alternative climate adaptation solutions instead of expanding the existing sewerage system, which would cost around €2.7 billion.

Denmark is far from alone in its approach. Estimates from cities elsewhere confirm that shallow drainage climate adaptation reduces cost. In the US state of Oregon, Portland has invested $8 million in adapting urban space infrastructure to save $250 million in hard infrastructure costs. On the other side of the country, Philadelphia has been promoting green infrastructure in planning and development since 2006, which has reduced combined sewer overflow drastically, saving the city approximately $170 million.

DOUBLE UP ON FUNCTIONS Projects like The Loop and Lindevangs park typify similar initiatives with double functions in the greater Copenhagen area. According to Søren Gabriel, a climate change adaptation specialist at engineering consultancy Orbicon, delegations from overseas looking for climate change adaptation solutions are regular visitors to these projects, where they gather new inspiration. Not many years ago, Denmark was looking outside its borders for solutions. Now it is becoming a frontrunner.

“Climate change adaptation solutions done the Danish way are probably more about values than technology. This is not only about handling water,” says Gabriel. The architects and engineers who pool their joint expertise in the name of “liveable cities” typify the Danish work ethic that arises from its cooperative culture, he adds. “I rarely see these double functions when visiting other projects around the world.”

New York is an exception. Earlier this year the city authority chose Ramboll, a Danish engineering firm, to perform a best practice exercise called “Cloudburst Resiliency Planning Study—Best Practices for Managing Stormwater in a Changing Climate.” The study seeks to identify the costs and benefits of an integrated approach to climate adaptation.

In 2014, Danish architect firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), working with One Architecture in the Netherlands, won a competition with their dryline project for the best climate change adaptation proposal for Manhattan. The project was singled out for its double function in creating green areas and pleasant social infrastructure for the community as well as its utility in shielding the city against flood damage. • 12

Beauty and utility An added benefit to shallow drainage systems is the opportunity to create more vibrant and playful public spaces, all at less cost than traditional sewerage

Keeping dry New York's new flood defences will form a seawall of green spaces FORESIGHT

Typically Danish

Working bees improving city life

A chair made of seaweed, built-in solar cells in windows, and a bicycle made of bamboo. A visit to Design Museum Danmark in Copenhagen reveals that Danish design and sustainability are two closely-linked concepts. Awareness of material and aesthetic sustainability are keywords in talk about Danish design today, says the museum's Lars Dybdahl,.

“It is about changing the attitude towards consumption, for people to buy fewer new things. To do that you need optimal design. Consumers demand sustainable products,” says Dybdahl, who is convinced it is Denmark’s long-standing tradition for sustainability that has ensured its leading role in sustainable design.

According to linguistic anthropologists, the Danish word hygge is a cultural word closely linked to Danish social values. It does not easily translate, yet is applied by native Danish speakers to more or less everything that gives them a "feel good" factor. “Conviviality” or “pleasant togetherness” are two, not quite adequate, descriptors. A quiet winter evening at home is all about hygge. Indeed, any friendly or pleasant atmosphere, even at work, can be hygge. Achieving a state of hygge is a goal in itself (not necessarily always supported by the boss). "Come along, even if it's only for the hygge," say friends to those reluctant to join in. Hygge is not always conducive to getting the job done. When the Danish national football team qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 1986, the coach, German Sepp Piontek, famously said later that too much hygge among the players was one of the greatest obstacles to making the team professional and successful.

Mushrooms from coffee Bringing agriculture to cities is trending and Denmark is part of it. Urban gardening or urban farming means making the most out of small spaces and very few resources.

“I love that we can produce food in the city without taking up a lot of space,” says Ebbe Korsgaard, manager of the small business Beyond Coffee.

Together with friends he grows oyster mushrooms in leftover coffee grounds in two containers in the middle of Copenhagen.

“The idea is to reuse waste in a sustainable production and we can transport everything on our bikes and sell the mushrooms to restaurants,” Korsgaard says, adding that only 0.2% of the nutrients are used when making coffee. The remaining 99.8% (the coffee grounds) is usually just thrown away. Beyond Coffee collects 1000 kilos of coffee grounds and produces 200 kilos of mushrooms every month.

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A unique word is key to Danish mentality

FORESIGHT

TEXT Eskil Meinhardt Hansen

Danish design and sustainability

Busy honeybees help keep the city green, but they need humans to survive.

That is why Bybi (meaning City Bee) has 25 honey-producing bee farms placed on rooftops around Copenhagen. For the founder, Oliver Maxwell, Bybi is a way to create an industry that is good for the environment as well as for the society. “The bees help connect the city with nature and I think that is important,” Maxwell says. “The way I see it, climate change is the biggest challenge we are facing as humans right now. We need to change how we organise work, production and consumption.” At Bybi, refugees and the homeless are hired to take care of the bees. All of the honey they collect is sold to stores or as raw material for making beer, candy and ice cream.

UN City er en grøn bygning midt i det blå hav

A

BIG

HOUSE Development of sustainable buildings is moving fast, pushing them to being energy producers rather than energy consumers. An early and futuristic example is the United Nations regional headquarters in Copenhagen, UN City, with its vast solar panel-covered roof, seawater cooling system and rain-water-flushed sanitation.

TEXT Rasmus Thirup Beck / PHOTO Adam Mørk

GREEN

Cities

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bird’s eye view is essential for gaining a true appreciation of UN City. From up here the building’s eye catching contour, an irregular eight-pointed star, is clearly visible. Zoom a little closer and the roof provides a first hint that it is more than the building’s design and dockside location that make it stand out. Stretching in serried ranks across the entire roof surface are more than 1400 solar panels, turning slowly to follow the sun as it arches across the sky. They meet one third of the huge building’s energy demand. Under the panels a white membrane, fabricated from reusable plant-based materials, reflects heat away from the roof in summer and acts as insulation in winter, reducing energy used for cooling and heating.

“It’s called Derbibrite; from Derbigum,” says Gry Kjær knowingly, with a nod towards the membrane.

She was the building’s main architect when Danish company 3xNielsen won the bid to design it in 2011.

“When I go into my office the building notices. The air, temperature and window blinds take on a life of their own” According to the World Bank, buildings account for 19% of total carbon emissions today; they use 60% of the world’s electricity, and account for 25% of water used and 50% of materials. The upside is that the building sector has the greatest potential for cutting carbon emissions at little or no cost, states the bank.

UN City uses roughly 45% of the energy consumed in a similarly sized conventional office block. The roof collects about three million litres of rainwater a year, used in the sanitation system. The 1300 workers, from more than 100 countries, who occupy UN City may flush the toilets (low-flow, of course) with rainwater up to 5300 times a day. Together with low-flow and intelligent faucets throughout, the total volume of water saved in the kitchens, toilet facilities and shower rooms is 61%.

Only in public areas of the building, visited by people from all corners of the world, are the toilets not flushed with rainwater. An exception that Kjær explains with barely a twitch of a smile: “This is to prevent children and others who might drink the water from the toilet.”

PLATINUM PERFORMANCE UN City is not alone in its sustainability efforts. It is a Danish example of a global trend in building design, from Copenhagen to Cincinnati. What the buildings share in common is the right to use one or more of a jumble of acronyms awarded in recognition of their FORESIGHT

sustainability credentials, such as LEED, BREAM, or DGNB. UN City proudly displays a LEED platinum sign, the highest accreditation achievable for this certificate. Selection for the award is based on a comprehensive points system, in which a minimum of 80 out of a possible 110 is required in categories such as material use, energy saving, water conservation, nearness to public transport, and so on. One of the UN’s demands from the outset was that the building had to contribute to the organisation’s mission to lead the way on all aspects of sustainability by achieving a platinum accreditation.

The UN could have chosen to strive for BREEAM, HQE, or DGNB certification but decided on LEED because it is the “toughest,” a statement that LEED’s competitors might take issue with. No matter which certificate is aimed for, the qualification process is demanding of human resources and costly. UN City’s construction company hired a full time employee whose sole job was to manage LEED documentation from start to finish of the building work. A fee of up to $1 million on large projects is also the norm. According to American analysts, the accreditation process adds 2% to construction costs, made up for by a 4% increase in the building’s value and savings in running costs, which often have a payback time of just seven years.

PROVEN TO WORK The desire to lead by example, as displayed by the UN in Copenhagen, lies behind the whole idea of certifying buildings for sustainability. No matter which of the four main certificate bodies asked, each points to

A sustainable city is born At the United Nations Millennium Summit of World Leaders in 2000 a strong call was made for more efficiency and coherency within the organisation.

The Danish government’s response, announced two years later, was a plan to bring all ten of the Copenhagen-based UN agencies together into a single compound consisting of two campuses.

Campus 1 is a newly built eight-pointed star-shaped office block, where around 1300 people work from all ten UN agencies located in Copenhagen: UNDP, UNEP, UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNOPS, UN Women, WFP and WHO. Campus 2 nearby is entirely made up of UNICEF’s new state-of-the-art, 20,000 square metre warehouse which stockpiles, manages and distributes emergency supplies as part of the UN’s response to humanitarian crises, wherever in the world they occur. Items for medical care and the care and protection of children are prioritised in 38 different pre-packaged kits.

15

Cities

the importance of setting a standard that companies have to meet. A sustainable operation is also good for business.

“The American construction sector understood that sustainability would be a key factor for both growth and showing environmental responsibility.

LEED expresses the sector’s desire to improve,” says Jennivine Kwan from the US Green Building Council (GBC). Her words are echoed by Mette Qvist at GBC Denmark: “When Danish architects and construction companies lead the way in a space that everyone wants to occupy, I hear the sound of rattling coins.”

Architects 3xNielsen must have got something right with UN City. LEED Platinum is not the building’s only accolade for sustainability. In 2012 it received the European Commission’s Green Building Award for New Buildings. Significantly, UN City was not a demonstration project; all the sustainability solutions implemented were already well known.

“The main contractor wanted proven systems.

On the other hand, it was a lot to implement all in one building, at least at the time we were constructing it,” says Kjær, in a comment that directs attention to the building's basement and yet another system rumbling along — the seawater cooling apparatus. The cold water that laps directly under five of the star-shaped building’s eight points, helps keep the structure cool, minimising energy use for air conditioning in summer months. It also cools UN City’s data servers.

INTELLIGENT WALLS Between the roof and the basement, staff employed at the eight UN organisations housed in the building 16

Platinum, gold and silver in sustainable construction With the aim of rewarding good behaviour and encouraging others to learn by example, several forms of accreditation in recognition of good practice in the construction of sustainable buildings have emerged over the past 20-30 years. Four lead the field.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)

LEED is a North American certificate launched in 1994 by the non-profit US Green Building Council (USGBC). Buildings in more than 150 countries are LEED accredited. USBGC ranks building sustainability in descending order of platinum, gold, silver and a plain certificate. By mid 2016, 72.732 buildings and projects had achieved LEED certification.

Source: www.usgbc.org

Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) BREEAM was launched in Britain in 1990 by the Building Research

FORESIGHT

Establishment (BRE), at the time a public institution. It has since been privatised. BREEAM evolved into the world’s most widely used green building certification standard, with 543.900 buildings holding BREEAM certificates in more than 50 countries by mid 2016. Source: www.bream.com

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB) The DGNB certificate issued by the German Sustainable Building Council is just nine years old and functions differently from its three main rivals. Instead of one international certificate system, the DGNB adapts its accreditation to national conditions. To date, local DGNB offices have been established in 20 countries. Source: www.dgnb-system.de

Haute Qualité Environnementale (HQE)

The French certification system for sustainable buildings was established shortly after the British BREEAM (above). HQE certificates have so far been awarded to 380.000 building projects in a large number of countries. The HQE certificate is ungraded.

Unexploited and untapped The building sector has the greatest potential for cutting carbon emissions at little or no cost, according to the World Bank

carry out their daily work, around the clock. A fitness centre is located on the premises and while managing the world’s crises, employees enjoy what are probably the best views on offer in Copenhagen from a building with inbuilt intelligence.

“When I go into my office the building notices.

The air, temperature and window blinds take on a life of their own,” says employee Eva Egesborg. She and her colleagues can also create their own office climate using the “My Office” program installed on every computer terminal, selecting desired heat, light and other preferences.

Best of all, the UN City building is a pleasant place to be. LEED also gives points for indoor climate, green space, bicycle parking and other feel-good factors. For Egesborg, who has previously worked in the depths of the Danish Foreign Ministry, the view she has enjoyed for the past three years over the capital city’s inner harbours and the green spaces around the eight-pointed green house of Copenhagen has been a welcome daily gift. “I just love this building,” she says. •

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