SESAC Site Växjö

The following information has been gathered as part of the CONCERTO Premium policy research.

Benefits of CONCERTO:

Key benefits:

The participation of Växjö in the CONCERTO Initiative raised the level of innovation in the local project. The SESAC-project has further increased Växjö’s attraction as a destination for those interested in “green” issues (at least 100 visiting delegations per year). International media exposure was achieved. The “Fossil Fuel Free Växjö” has become a CONCERTO model for other cities all over the world. CONCERTO thus significantly contributes to the achievement of such ambitious climate protection targets. New technological solutions could be explored: district cooling and vertical axis wind turbines, high rise wooden houses, which are built without heating systems but with heat recovery and bio-energy district heating supply for the domestic hot water, a world unique project that minimizes the environmental impact. Besides being CO2 efficient in the production process and the standing period, the buildings themselves serve as a carbon sink. As part of SESAC Växjö produced guidelines for efficient energy management. Due to the SESAC-project, housing companies realized they could do so much more, develop better buildings and they have consequently raised their construction standards. The knowledge gained from the SESAC project fed also into the new local energy plan and helped getting it approved. The council learned about running an EU-project. In Växjö the SESAC buildings, especially the houses, paved the way for a new type of Public tendering and negotiation process, leaving the City and its Public Housing Companies with less risk and the private building contractors more incentive-based in their fulfillment of the energy and technological performance requirements.

Skill development:

In the SESAC communites Grenoble, Delft and Växjö training sessions on the environmental management system ecoBUDGET were organized. A lot of training was undertaken as part of SESAC - construction workers have learned a lot. The learning effect increased from one building to the next. Energy efficiency standards were increased on those buildings that had not initially been planned as passive houses.

Local economic effects:

New green companies were established. A large local company developed heat exchangers to recover heat from waste water for the passive houses.

Barriers encountered:

Administrative barriers:

Risks posed by an innovation-averse administration had to be anticipated and The Public Procurement Act had to be complied with by the Eco-Building demonstration project, which comprised public and private developers. In order to anticipate these, early support regarding how to combine Innovation and Risk-Mitigation in relation to The Public Procurement Act was done, through extensive cooperation with external consultants and the technical coordination. A lesson learnt is that innovative tendering alone doesn’t attract enough attention from the still somewhat conservative building industry. It was not until the housing companies actually invited potential building companies into face to face meeting, and also provided information and training, that the real dialogue started and a new type of project tendering and procurement could be put in place.

Technical barriers:

One site had problems with retrieving energy data from the metering system.

Economic barriers:

There were difficulties in calculating the housing costs. The usual situation in Sweden is that tenants do not pay for their consumption of district heating energy nor domestic hot water. Heating is often included in the rent (not declared as a separate sum). The housing provider guarantees to supply a minimum temperature e.g. 18°C or 21°C with the option for residents to increase the temperature above that. Therefore, they lack financial incentive for saving energy. In CONCERTO, individual heat meters were therefore used.

Further economic barrier was posed by short sighted national incentives, which result in an unclear investment situation. After elections in Sweden in 2006, subsidies for rental properties were removed, just before SESAC. This caused problems for the project part dealing with the construction of passive houses, as building new apartments for renting became more expensive. So higher rents would be required in order to recoup the investment, which in turn would make it more difficult to find tenants. Hence housing companies were hesitant. However, Växjö is constantly growing, meaning that there is a housing shortage in Växjö. Through this, construction of the passive houses went ahead. Now all dwellings are rented out, but it took longer, and required extensive marketing.

Furthermore, the biogas project got more expensive than expected. Amendments could be made every year, budgets could be moved, budget shifts between countries.

Social barriers:

The project objective of saving 5% of electricity consumption in households throughout Växjö could not be achieved, as a change of behavior takes longer than expected and electricity is to cheap (so people feel it is not worth the effort) and the campaign was not extensive enough. It is expected that the objective will be reached eventually, but will take longer than expected.

Success factors identified:

Technical Success Factors:

In order to help the tenants keeping an energy saving routine, displays showing the energy use are installed in each apartment, also using the internet Platform “EnergiKollen“.

Social Success factors:

Development of the campaign SAMS that aims at a 5% reduction of electricity among all households in Växjö was important. Also, competitions were organized using a smart metering box and the internet platform “EnergiKollen“, through which the municipal utility informs end users about their energy consumption (for both electricity and district heating). This interface is available online and can be accessed by every end-user. Additionally, 123 households in two different buildings participated in testing different kinds of smart metering appliances. Citizens could compare their energy consumptions, get together in teams and enter competitions on which team could reduce their energy consumption the most. Competitions were held for the household with the lowest energy consumption in a given month with a restaurant meal as price. The underlying rationale for it is the belief that as soon as people understand their energy consumption, they will be encouraged to behave in a more energy efficient way. In the first building, 29 households received a smart metering appliance with a display on which they could see their consumption (electricity, hot and cold water) and costs and receive feedback on their energy consumption behaviour and savings. The other 40 households in this building had the same appliances with a display, but did not receive feedback. In the second building (54 dwellings), householders received information on their electricity, space heating, hot and cold water consumption on a display. Their system included also a feedback. An accompanying study comparing electricity consumption in the two different types of buildings evaluating the effect of the feedback system and comparing them with the reference apartments not involved in the SESAC project revealed the effectiveness of the display feedback system and demand side management. Results show 34% savings of annual electricity when compared to reference apartments in Växjö.

Institutional success factors:

The municipality of Växjö had set up an advisory committee in 2007 composed of the university and industry representatives advising how to achieve goals and considering the measures assuring regional economic growth. This played an important role in setting up a strategy. The committee is now no longer active local energy company is owned by the municipality. In Växjö, questions related to CONCERTO and the SESAC project have been integrated in the local census, which mainly involved questions on the perception of the municipal services. There is strong support across the local population and across all political parties for retaining the status of “greenest city in Europe”. Close dialogue between environmental office at the council + planning department + housing company. Great commitment of all involved.

Economic success factors:

Regarding project delivery, the SESAC buildings, especially the passive houses, paved the way for a new type of public tendering and negotiation process, meaning that the city and its public housing companies are exposed to fewer risks and the private building contractors have greater incentives, based on their fulfillment of the energy and technological performance requirements. The innovation and demonstration project with distributed bio-fuelled absorption cooling for the local energy utility VEAB’s office, has opened technical and financial possibilities for a substantial extension of this environmentally friendly and electricity saving cooling solution to several of the City’s new and existing buildings. It used an innovative cross-financing model, including green certificates from VEAB’s CHP production. Altogether, the presence of a national CO2-tax has influences at local level. Having this tax (since 1994) on oil and other fossil fuels acts as a strong incentive for emissions savings.

Other:

Driving forces are the willingness to take responsibility, regional growth and development and public relations while environmental and energy legislation plays a secondary role. The main driving force for private sector has been the possibility to get media exposure at the EU level. There was massive political support across all parties.

Business models used:

In Växjö, the Växjö Energi AB (VEAB), an energy company created by the municipality of Växjö and owned by the local residents, was involved in the demonstration activities of the SESAC project. This company is in charge of the provision of district heating and electricity (Sandvik bio-fuel based combined heat and power plant) and with the implementation of energy saving measures. Within the SESAC project, VEAB has been involved in demand side management demonstration activities, involving the introduction of different smart metering solutions in a sample of households and in measuring the effects. They developed the internet platform (EnergiKollen) mentioned above. VEAB is also involved in a demonstration activity on heat driven cooling combined with the biomass fired CHP plant. A demo chiller at Sandviksverket provided valuable input for feasibility studies and planning of a full-scale solution, which however is not yet completed. An innovative cross-financing model, including green certificates from VEAB’s CHP production was developed. This meant that the work regarding biomass fuelled absorption cooling for the local energy utility VEAB’s office, has opened technical and financial possibilities for a substantial extension of this environmentally friendly and electricity saving cooling solution to several of the City’s new and existing buildings.

diagramm vaexjoe

Legacy – follow-on projects:

In the SESAC communities (Växjö, Delft and Grenoble), stakeholder meetings were organized and involved stakeholders of the local service sector (e.g. builders, architects, housing companies, etc.). During these meetings it was discussed how the results reached in the demonstration activities could be used in the day-to-day work of these stakeholders. In this way, it was tried to create a spill-over from the demonstration activities and to motivate companies to replicate construction techniques developed within the SESAC project (e.g. wooden constructions, passive houses). In order to continue CONCERTO-like endeavors an application for Smart Cities had been submitted. Initially this was turned down, but a new application will be made. Furthermore, the city hall is supposed to be refurbished to CONCERTO-Standard and the municipal energy company has moved on to develop an energy-plus building.

Legacy - Policy Developments:

The local energy plan for Växjö had been rather old – SESAC provided the opportunity to revise and improve it and make it more ambitions (this formed part of the project activities).