Smart cities

R&D recommendations:

• Develop building materials and envelope solutions, intelligent management and control systems and methods for calculating greenhouse gas emissions.

• Develop new products and solutions for effective renovation of existing buildings.

• Investigate how future buildings need to be constructed so that they are robust to different uses and different

users.

• Develop specific concepts for zeroemission buildings (for different building types) and initiate zero emission building pilot projects.. policy recommendations:

• Laboratory infrastructure: Build a

Zero Emission Building Laboratory (ZEB Lab) where it is possible to develop, investigate, test and demonstrate new and innovative building technologies.

Interacting with the built environment

The smart city is a notion that brings contemporary developments in urban planning, architecture and ‘big data’ together. Effective use of information on building and district performance has the potential to enhance the performance of urban areas significantly. Since a city is more than data, elaborate experiments in so-called ‘Living Labs’ are necessary to see how smart technology and everyday activity go together.

Integrated energy planning in towns and villages is one of the spearheads of the European initiative ‘Smart Cities and Communities’ which was released in 2011. Late 2013 a Strategic Innovation Plan for Smart Cities was launched by the European Commission, helping European cities to find innovative solutions, create value, and share knowledge in order to become smarter cities. smartness in this context implies robust design of buildings, infrastructure, urban planning and mobility linked to smart ICT systems to optimize energy supply at all times. Since the built environment influences

landscape, ecology, and human organizational structures, careful long-term decision will need to be made as these will be influencing the environmental performance of cities for years to come.

The total public and private investment needed in Europe over the next 10 years is estimated at approximately €11 billion. By 2020, the Smart Cities initiative should put 25 to 30 European cities at the forefront of the transition to a low carbon future. These cities will be the nuclei from which smart networks, a new generation of buildings and low carbon transport solutions will develop into European wide realities that will transform our energy system.

Technology status

Research, business, education and government in over 14 countries have been working together to create competences, in an attempt to make life in European cities easier, cheaper and more environmentally friendly. To accelerate innovation in construction and transport, the European platform for construction technology (ECTP - European Construction Technology Platform) authored two central roadmaps with input from the industry and the scientific community. The E2BA (Energy Efficient Buildings Association) coordinated the process of defining the roadmap for energy efficient buildings, and this collaboration managed to mobilize 150 companies from across the value chain, of which 25% were small and medium sized enterprises. The community hopes for even greater impact with the road map for transportation and infrastructure, which includes about 5 million km of roads, 215.000 km railways, and 41.000 km inland waterways in the EU’s 27 member countries (ReFINE – Research for future infrastructure networks in Europe, 2013). Both roadmaps call for larger systems thinking in the industry and offer concrete suggestions for research and development in order to avoid continuing to repeat the mistakes of the 20th century: increasing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing innovation and high building costs were a waste of precious resources. Strikingly, both roadmaps emphasize people, attractiveness and accessibility, health and safety strategies to make both buildings and infrastructure more energy efficient and cost effective in one lifetime. Much attention is also directed towards the renovation of existing buildings

and infrastructure and energy efficiency at all levels - from components to the site level - and better use of ICT solutions, both in engineering and in subsequent management and maintenance. Norway boasts advanced energy monitoring (AMS) and the widespread use of new technologies such as smart phones and mobile services, and is positioned at the top of international surveys of quality of life. Unfortunately, Norway also has a high electricity use in households and buildings in general. Norway is therefore in a unique position to demonstrate how integrated energy planning linked to the use of ICT and robust building technologies can create smarter, environmentally friendly towns, and can possibly be among the first to export new knowledge and technology which may be useful learning for other countries. Challenges

Energy conservation and efficiency are the key issues in the global effort to tackle climate change and resource scarcity (EC 2012), and the effect of energy efficiency increases significantly when combined with other resource efficiency measures (EC 2011). One of the main challenges is to get to sufficient interaction between widely different fields such as urban planning, energy management, greenhouse gas accounting, climate change, aesthetics, functionality, socio-economic conditions, health, wellness, comfort, productivity, culture and heritage (Leipzig Charter 2007).

‘Smart cities and villages’ is a research and innovation area that offers a unique domain for interaction in the form of integrated energy design, urban planning, infrastructure, buildings and energy, combined with a high quality of life and high quality of the built environment. The development of smart cities and towns requires a long-term strategy for integrated energy design with clearly defined and measurable goals that ensures robust and accountable system design that can also be adapted to changes in utilization, users, and technologies. Topics that may be designated as priority challenges are measurement and verifiability of quantitative and qualitative data, the development of integrated simulation and modelling tools, and a common European framework for ‘Smart Cities’ projects with indicators and databases that provide a better basis for comparing and learn from each other’s experiences.

Change processes aimed towards integrated urban energy planning require a thorough understanding and analysis of how use, production, transfers and storage of energy occur between buildings, public spaces and networks. In addition, climate change has become of increasing concern for energy systems integrated into the built environment, and such systems should hence be able to provide resistance to extreme weather and small incremental changes in weather conditions. They should also be flexible enough to retain or resume their functionality, accessibility and safety after a disaster has occurred. Most simulation tools emphasize buildings, users or networks, not the interface between them, and experts are educated and trained accordingly. It is therefore difficult to model and optimize synergies for energy efficient buildings that interact with energy networks, users and the environment in real time, and this hinders the development of integrated, flexible and resilient solutions that can adapt over time (Conte et al 2012, Larsson et al 2011, Salat 2012).

Outlook

EU and China are preparing major investments in smart cities. Living Labs should cultivate experiences with holistic urban administration driven by ambitious targets and innovative technology, exchange expertise and mutual learning experiences. Planning for the impact of this technology and its integration in the built environment in the coming decades is highly uncertain. Good synergy between design, technology and people will be of particular importance for any long-term successes. This requires a systemic roadmap that provides guidelines, standards and indicators for planning, design, construction, upgrading and operation of smart cities and villages during their entire life cycle within different scales.

Of particular interest to Norway is the linkage of inclusive building processes with ‘smart’ decisions: data, tools, verification, methods of integration of robust design, and smart technologies. The process and project experience from Cities of the Future (Fremtidens Byer), Smart City local and national Centres for Environmentfriendly Energy Research (CEER) should enable Norway to be the front row in both the European context and in the cooperation with China. With the emergence of ICT solutions for energy planning and management, Norway can come to play a new role in the development of comprehensive quality energy.

R&D recommendations:

• Development of optimized energy efficiency and attractive outdoor spaces customised to local climate conditions.

• Development of systems for optimized management of energy demand, production and storage, including

ICT for diagnosis, monitoring and visualization.

• Development of solutions for production of decentralized renewable energy integrated in the urban infrastructure.

• Development of solutions for increased energy efficiency through synergies with systems for water and waste. policy recommendations:

• Development of Key Performance

Indicators that enable definition and assessment of added value and cost for Smart Cities.

• Development of a Knowledge Platform with tools, pilot projects, and monitoring of Living Labs.

measures for sustainable societies

The main challenge in designing a sustainable energy system lies in that socio-economic benefits of renewable energy are not monetized in the marketplace.

- IEA Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (RETD), 2011