Innovation: helping cities become greener

As part of our “Summer like no other series”, Paperjam and Delano take you on research discoveries that will change our daily lives. And, in this case, may also help the planet.

Source : delano.lu
Date de publication : 01/09/2020

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (List) is developing a platform that will calculate how to optimise the use of renewable energy in cities of the greater region which could ultimately serve as a decision-making tool for municipalities. 

Putting a few solar panels here, a few wind turbines there are good. But if we could optimise renewable energy production on a city scale, that would be even better. List intends to help public authorities in their ecological decision-making, thanks to its Smart Energy Cities and Regions (Secure) project. 

What are the opportunities for renewable energy in our city? Which roofs or facades would be best for installing solar panels? How should buildings be renovated? How much could we reduce CO2 emissions? How can agricultural biomass be used for heating? These are just some of the questions that the List-developed platform should be able to answer, through a combination of data from satellite imaging; high-resolution 2D and 3D maps from geospatial analyses; forecasting and visualisation tools; and meteorological information. 

“While almost 75% of the European population is living in cities and is responsible for nearly the same proportion of the total energy consumption, urban areas are playing a key role in carbon mitigation and energy transition,” the institute states on its website.  

Case study in Esch-sur-Alzette

The Secure platform already exists with international data from the European “Music” and “Daedalus” projects. But List’s aim is to develop its tool for the cities of Luxembourg and the greater region. A case study was thus considered for Esch-sur-Alzette. Other communes will be approached throughout the project. 

Ultimately, “At the end of the project, municipalities, energy service providers, software companies, investors and even citizens can compute or explore renewable energy potentials” through this platform. 

List also hopes it will help stimulate the creation of companies specialising in renewable energy. The project also benefits from financial support from Enovos.

MATHILDE OBERT

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