photovoltaic

The main metropolis of the French Alps with 530,000 inhabitants, at the junction of three Alpine valleys, is a city in a dense populated area surrounded by nature. Grenoble suffers from being a sink for pollution.  The short term target is to reduce CO2 emissions by 14% until 2014 (compared to 2005), to reduce energy consumption per inhabitant by 2014 and to increase the share of renewable energy to attain a level of 14% of all energy consumed. Between 2004 and 2007, the emissions were reduced by 7%.

Viladecans with 64,277 inhabitants is part of the complex regional web that is the metropolitan area ov Barcelona. It is a coastal community, 12 km from Barcelona. It has seen fast population growth, with a number of inhabitants moving from other parts of Spain, and planning and development in the district has been unstructured. Households in the area have lower income and higher unemployment than the regional average.

Milton Keynes already has a reputation in the UK as an energy pioneer. Designated in the 1960’s as a planned new town, it is located close to London.

The Concerto-Project will comprise 7 blocks totalling 650 dwellings, with retail and community facilities at ground floor on main frontages. All in all, nearly 3,830 people will directly benefit from the project in Milton-Keynes. Because of renewable energy supply and energy savings, the buildings they live in will produce just half the CO2 that would be produced by equivalent dwellings without the measures.

Apeldoorn is situated in central Holland, to the east of Amsterdam and has around 155,000 inhabitants. It has set itself the ambitious target of becoming carbon neutral by 2020 and, through the CONCERTO project, is taking the first steps towards realising this aim by constructing 3,100 new dwellings of the highest energy standard.