Joint activities and field visits highlighted progress and replication pathways on positive energy districts, community engagement and heritage-sensitive innovation


On September 15^th, EU smart cities projects REFORMERS and POCITYF held a joint event in Alkmaar, Netherlands, bringing partners together to explore how their positive energy solutions can be scaled up for greater impact.

Hosted by Alkmaar Municipality, the event featured visits to the city’s innovation sites for sustainable energy. The first site is the HVC Bio-Energy plant, where household waste is transformed into hot water for the district heating network. Then delegates visited the De Meent sports complex, which uses residual heat from ice production to warm its facilities, followed by the Noordertogt apartment complex, where more than 900 solar panels across the roof and facade enable the building to cover its own energy demand.

Opening the day, Mayor Shouten spoke about the challenge of building a sustainable city without losing sight of local identity, crediting POCITYF for helping residents overcome their hesitation and for tapping into the ideas of younger generations. According to Alderman Braak, the POCITYF experience has shown how different neighbourhoods can support each other, an idea at the core of building Positive Energy Districts.

Alkmaar is one of two so-called "lighthouse" cities in the POCITIF project – the other being Évora in Portugal. Lighthouse cities are places in which project teams design and test innovative strategies and measures before extending them to "follower" cities to be replicated.

At the event, Évora’s site manager Humberto Queiroz reported a potential sevenfold increase in renewable energy production since the start of the project: “Despite the impossibility of installing conventional renewable energy generation systems in the heart of these historically and culturally protected cities, thanks to the innovative solutions of Évora's ecosystem (in terms of generation, storage or smart control) it is now possible to reuse areas that normally could not be used for renewable energy generation in a conventional way and as a result increase the energy positivity of Évora's historic centre”.

Launched in 2019, EU funded project POCITYF has worked to test and demonstrate smart city innovations for the improvement of energy performance levels in the two lighthouse cities (Alkmaar and Évora) aiming to replicate them in 6 fellow cities. POCITYF combines clusters of buildings that generate more energy than they consume, called positive energy blocks (PEB), with grid flexibility, e-mobility, innovative ICT technologies and citizen engagement strategies, while respecting the urban cultural heritage. Now that POCITYF is close to its conclusion, REFORMERS is entering its second year, working to develop a “flagship valley” in Alkmaar and Heiloo.

With this perspective, the Alkmaar municipality organised a workshop on Alkmaar’s long-term vision led by LOLA Landscape Architects, to present possible future scenarios for its Bold City Vision. The participants were invited to discuss how urban development and new technologies will possibly tackle future energy scarcity challenges, looking towards the 2050 and 2100 horizons far ahead. Audience members from both POCITYF and the REFORMERS project contributed sharing ideas and perspectives, exploring how the city and its community might adapt to reduce carbon footprint while aiming to self-sufficiency.

Some delegates headed to InVesta for a panel discussion about REFORMERS’ work on the Renewable Energy Valley at Boekelermeer, before going on a walking tour focused on the city’s digital twin project.

Through this event, the younger REFORMERS project can now build on the work undertaken by POCITYF with a view to scaling up the innovations as part of the broader energy transition.

Discover more about POCITYF and REFORMERS projects on their websites



Contacts:

Project coordinator:
João Cravinho – EDP
joao.cravinho@edp.pt

Communication Secretariat:
info@pocityf.eu

Project website: https://pocityf.eu
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pocityf/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfINly2sme7pxYOm8n2Z1Dw?view_as=subscriber