Using the two lighthouse cities Espoo in Finland and Leipzig in Germany, as well as five other cities (Reykjavík in Iceland, Maia in Portugal, Lviv in Ukraine, Kifissia in Greece and Kladno in the Czech Republic), a socially and economically compatible transformation towards climate-neutral cities is demonstrated. The team from the University of Leipzig is supporting the technical partners with practical feasibility studies on climate-neutral solutions for energy-positive blocks and districts.
Duration: 10.2019 - 09.2024
Funding source: EU Europäische Union
Participating organizational units of UL: Chair for Energy Management and Sustainability
SPARCS: Sustainable energy Positive and zero cARbon CommunitieS
Background
Cities were one of the key players at the Paris Climate Summit COP21, where 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement on 12 December 2015, committing to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees to mitigate the impacts of climate change. With the momentum generated by the recent Cities IPCC conference and the Global Climate Action Summit at COP24, local and regional governments in Katowice called for clear and clean procedures to implement the rules of the Paris Agreement. Specific targets for global urban development were further defined in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (2015), the so-called SDGs. To support the implementation of smart urban technologies, the European Commission has developed two parallel approaches: large-scale demonstration of technologies in cities and municipalities ("lighthouse projects") and "horizontal activities" to address specific challenges (e.g. regulatory barriers, standardisation, public procurement and performance monitoring). The SPARCs project focuses on the first of these approaches, the "lighthouse projects". It also supports all horizontal activities in cooperation with the already established European Smart Cities SCC1 project cluster.
The overarching goal of SPARCs is to achieve a citizen-friendly, zero-carbon urban community by integrating the following key factors:
- Energy positivity technologies in buildings and neighbourhoods.
- Citizen participation
- Urban planning and management
- Flexible grid management and energy storage
- E-mobility as an element of the energy system.
SPARCs aims to address the multi-layered challenges cities face by creating the necessary systems for urban energy transformation in cities so that citizen-centred, sustainable and carbon-free communities can emerge.
Leipzig has a long history as an energy metropolis. The companies and research centres in the Energy & Environment cluster are becoming an important growth driver for Leipzig's economy. SPARCs supports the development of a long-term vision for the year 2050 with the aim of increasing the self-consumption of renewable energy produced within the city limits and virtually connecting all generation, storage and consumption units involved in order to balance energy consumption and production and enable new services to reduce CO2 emissions. The strategy focuses on several aspects ranging from the integration of an existing and historic building stock (very common across Europe and often a major barrier to implementing energy efficient measures) to the integration of newly constructed buildings all connected to a smart energy grid. The demonstration neighbourhoods are former industrial areas (Spinnerei-Gelände/Leipzig West) and a Virtual Energy Positive Community.
Project objective
The activity "Carbon-free district heating in Leipzig-West" aims to increase the share of renewable energy in the central district heating system. The focus is on the planning, construction and integration of a solar thermal plant into the central district heating system, which will supply the district's residents with carbon-free heating energy. The next step towards CO2 neutrality is the analysis of possible paths to a post-fossil fuel future for district heating. Using the area of "Leipzig West" as an example, a blueprint for other districts will be created, based on the specifics of each district (e.g. technologies).
Approach
Leipziger Stadtwerke (LSW) is currently planning and building solar thermal plants in the city of Leipzig, which are to be commissioned by 2022 in order to be able to feed renewable heat into the district heating network. The University of Leipzig is applying a techno-economic model for the demonstration district as scientific support. The customer groups are clustered according to the boundaries of the demonstration district. For the demand side, data on the energy balance must be collected. For the status quo scenario, the current heat supply technologies are added. For the green scenario, different amounts of solar heat are added to the system. With the help of a model-based analysis of alternative district heating solutions, an expansion concept is developed. Among other things, technology options and potential locations for solar thermal plants are evaluated in terms of their technical and economic potential for integration into the district heating network.
Benefits
Based on the evaluation of the demonstration districts, site-specific and long-term strategies for the new and further development of district heating systems in a post-fossil future can be proposed.
