This section sketches the broader landscape of European initiatives, activities in the fields of smart cities and low energy districts, in particular the EIP-SCC, Covenant of Mayors, and European Energy Award.
European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities
The EU’s goals for energy savings, clean energy production, low emission mobility and logistics, mitigation of climate change and digital inclusion, provide the context for the EIP-SCC. The EIP-SCC, established in 2012 as an initiative from of the EC, has strived to build a broad community of cities, industries, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), banks, knowledge institutes, citizens, NGOs, and other smart city actors. It intends to improve citizens’ quality of life and reach energy and climate targets, while increasing the competitiveness of Europe’s industry and innovative SMEs.
Knowledge sharing to prevent the repetition of mistakes and facilitating connections between people and solutions are essential to achieve these goals. To this end, the EIP-SCC Market Place brings together those who are active in the field of Smart Cities and willing to know more about ongoing and foreseen activities throughout Europe. Networking, exchange of information, partnering and matchmaking help to develop and implement smart city and low energy district solutions at the intersection of energy, ICT and transport. The EIP-SCC plays a central role in shaping the preconditions for market acceleration and prepare new deals in the near future.
In general, smart city and low energy district plans and projects have four overall objectives:
- make the city more liveable and sustainable, and realise a better quality of life
- use the increasing volume of urban data and connectivity, next to advanced ICT, to adjust to the city to the era of digitisation
- provide better services to citizens and local businesses
- generate local economic growth through new business opportunities and start-ups
- These objectives are met by using smart city and low energy district solutions. Solutions are understood here to include not only technologies, but also specific methods. The most common technologies are summarised in Table 0-1.
EIP-SCC Action Cluster on Integrated planning, policy and regulation
Within the EIP-SCC, the Action Cluster of Integrated Planning/Policy and Regulation focuses on what is needed to plan and manage smart city projects in an integrated way. More specifically, in the initiative “From Planning to Implementation and Upscaling of Smart City Projects”, cities, industry, NGOs and knowledge partners collaborate on the exchange of experiences in the integrated planning and implementation of smart city projects, and their upscaling and replication afterwards to achieve the urban transition to smart and sustainable cities on an increasing scale across Europe.
SCIS
EIP-SCC and the initiatives and commitments of the Action Cluster IPPR partner with SCIS since the launch of the EIP-SCC. One of the main aims is to consider the outcomes of all projects considered by SCIS to feed EIP-SCC AC IPPR with inputs for promoting and branding integrated planning approaches within the cities and community networks. In addition, EIP-SCC AC IPPR has organised with SCIS several workshops, gathering inputs from EC DGs, and major cities networks, i.e. European Energy Award, EUROCITIES, Covenant of Mayors, Climate Alliance. One common aim is to provide guidance to best meet our EU targets as well as UN SDGs objectives.
The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy
The Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy - Europe is the initiative by which European towns and cities voluntarily commit to reducing their CO2 emissions and adapt to climate change. This formal commitment is to be achieved through the implementation of Sustainable Energy (and Climate) Action Plans (SEAPs or SECAPs). The purpose of the present guidebook is to help the signatory municipalities to achieve the commitments they have taken on by signing up to the initiative, in particular to prepare a SECAP within two years following their official adhesion, which includes:
| Parts of built environment | Typical smart city and low energy district solutions |
|---|---|
|
Residential, buildings; Commercial, social, educational, medical buildings; Industry buildings and installations |
Low-, zero- and positive energy construction and refurbishment technologies, installations and appliances, e.g. thermal insulation, passive houses, heat recovery from ventilation; Integration with renewable energy production; Making buildings more intelligent through sensors, actuators and interoperable ICT, smart meters; Creating uni- or bi-directional charging infrastructures for electric vehicles as cars and bikes; Providing collective solutions for energy supply, such as solar plants, geothermal or district heating; Make operation and use of the building smarter, e.g. through sensorised smart lighting; Using clean mobility and logistics solutions to provide transport, e.g. electric vehicles, smart parking, clean “last mile” in logistics, Applying principles or smart (re)design, integrated planning and implementation at district level, e.g. based on holistic energy and transport designs which have been co-designed with stakeholders; Smart process technology in industry, e.g. allowing re-use of excess heat and by-products as hydro |
| Infrastructures |
Enable smart operation and use of the infrastructures with sensors and actuators, other urban data and ICT, i.e. intelligent transport systems; Smart thermal and electric grids, virtual power plants; Enable exchanges, conversion and co-production of energy, e.g. with data centres, or using combined heat power (CHP); Adding sensors and actuators to the physical infrastructures, Smart Lighting; Organise interoperability between physical infrastructures and buildings through protocols, standards, e.g. Internet of Things, Internet of Everything; Organise smart operations, smart (re)design and improved/novel services to citizens through urban platforms |
- a Mitigation & Adaptation strategy
- a Baseline Emission Inventory (BEI)
- a Mitigation Action plan
- a Risks and Vulnerability Assessment
- an Adaptation Action Plan
The BEI is an official part of the SECAP and a prerequisite to SECAP elaboration, as it will provide knowledge of the sector of the entities emitting CO2 on the municipality’s territory, and will thus help select the appropriate actions. Inventories conducted in later years will allow determining if the actions provide sufficient CO2 reductions and if further actions are necessary.
European Energy Award
An important example of both benchmarking and standardisation is the European Energy Award (eea). As a quality management system and certification process, the eea establishes interdisciplinary planning and action as well as a process-oriented and long-term energy and climate protection policy in the municipalities, in six different areas: mobility, supply and disposal (electricity, district heating, renewable energy sources, water supply, sewage, waste, etc.), communal buildings & facilities, urban planning & development model, internal organisation (including continuing training, performance agreements, and planning & controlling) and external communication & cooperation information.
Citizens are key partners and players in the eea governance model. More than 1500 cities and communities in Europe have already implemented eea. The basic principle of the eea is the process based on the management cycle of “analysing – planning – implementing – auditing – adjusting” that is typical in the business world, supplemented by the “award”.
eea is fully consistent with major global quality management systems standards, in particular ISO 50001 (Energy Management Systems) and ISO 37101 (Sustainable Communities Management system). Several municipalities have successfully implemented both schemes (ISO quality management systems and eea) simultaneously.
CEN/CENELEC/ETSI SF-SSCC
CEN/CENELEC /ETSI SF-SSCC is a joint group of the three European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs) that acts as an advisory and coordinating body for European standardization activities related to Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities field. It does not itself develop standardization deliverables (EN, TR, TS). The Sector Forum:
- Liaises with relevant international initiatives (such as those within ISO, IEC and ITU) and prepare an overview of suitable standards already publicly available (from the International Standards Organizations ISO, IEC and ITU) to meet specific needs for smart and sustainable cities and communities;
- Analyses and recommends standards for development, implementation, adaptation, or revision by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI;
- Organises an annual event on standardization activities for smart and sustainable cities open to relevant stakeholders to collect needs, share experiences and favour exchange to support convergence on common SSCC issues;
- Liaises and coordinates with relevant European initiatives (such as for example the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Smart Cities);
- Identifies and gives due consideration to European innovation/research projects which might impact the field/subject;
- Considers and advises stakeholders on any strategic issues and developments concerning standardization for smart and sustainable cities and communities;
- Informs on latest legislative developments occurring at the EC level (if any) and on the status of standardization work undertaken by relevant European Technical Committee/Technical Bodies.