District of Future: a New Transformation of City District

By Rubén Cánovas Mas, Head of Smart Cities, Manager at everis


 

Summer 2016


District of the Future (DoF) is a project funded by the European Commission that aims to demonstrate how an increase in the energy effi ciency of city districts can be achieved using innovative Information and Communication Technology. This has the potential to decrease a city's energy consumption and its greenhouse gas emissions. The project's goal is to demonstrate that energy consumption and CO2 emissions can be lowered by 30-40% relative to the current and average building stock present in the city.

The project and affiliated research could be instrumental in providing insight and new techniques in the development of an urban district of the future. Every building in any city will be able to collaborate, share, and interact to improve their citizens' quality of life and to decrease public and private expenditure on energy.

The goals described will only be realised when the following infrastructure is in place:

  • - The use and implementation of energy efficient solutions and renewable energy sources needs to be incentivised;
  • - A communication infrastructure to control and optimize the operations of such devices needs to be deployed and standardized across Europe.

The DoF project started by analysing three use case cities across Europe. It was important to study and apply the DoF solution to different cultural, meteorological, and economic situations to understand the replicability of the DoF solution.

In the French city of Orleans, the performance of energy efficient technologies in public buildings is being monitored and optimised. The Spanish city of Sabadell is located in the Barcelona metropolitan area. In Sabadell residential, public, and industrial buildings were tested and integrated into the DoF platform. Therefore the DoF project will include the results and achievements pertinent to the industrial, public and private sector.

Corby, in the United Kingdom, is a rapidly developing city in Northamptonshire. It was possible to analyse, for example, how a Zero Energy Bill house can significantly minimise the emissions at a district level if standardised across the district by sharing, replicating and applying their energy patterns.

DoF demonstrates how, by using a communication platform and optimisation algorithms, along with energy efficient and renewable energy devices, it is possible to reduce the emissions of three pilot cities across Europe by 30-40%. Having a cross European study will allow for the implementation of the DoF solution using the same methodology and procedure to other sites and locations, helping councils to achieve their decarbonisation and sustainability goals whilst bringing major costs reduction.

Due to the heterogeneous nature of the data and its influential relationship with citizens' quality of life, the DoF project outcomes are applicable towards a diverse range of areas external to energy efficiency. The project can also be a starting point for future collaborations with different partners from, for instance, in the real estate, utilities or construction sector.

To achieve a truly sustainable society, the European Union will need to encourage the deployment of smart and efficient energy equipment, and invest to foster a sustainable future for Europe.


This text reflects only the author's view and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

This project has received funding from the European Union's FP7 program under grant agreement No 608649.


CONTACT DETAILS
Website: www.dof-project.eu
Facebook: www.facebook.com/DistrictOfFuture
Twitter contact: @DoF_Project
E-mail: info@dof-project.eu