The Clean Energy Hack is based on the following 4 core challenge topics which will be represented by city representatives from Singapore, Hamilton, Umeå and Stavanger.
Challenge 1: Mobility
Cities worldwide face great challenges concerning the provision of clean, noise-free mobility, and are therefore looking for future mobility services which can solve some of those challenges.
Noise is a consistent issue in cities which experiences an increasing focus due to the affect it has on the wellbeing of citizens and the limitations to urban space utilization. The problem of noise from tires and cars in cities limit the possibility to utilize areas close to highways to develop urban areas. Vibrations from trains can also cause problems for buildings close to the railway tracks and negatively affect the life of people living close by. A need for noise reduction solutions is therefore at the essence to improve the urban space.
Other spaces are also interlinked with mobility and urban areas such as parking lots. Although parking spaces in cities take up a lot of space, they also represent a range of opportunities as they can serve as buffer areas for delaying rainwater or present other solutions when extra urban space is in occasional need. Cities are looking for service providers and urban planners who can innovate new models for mobility services based on clean energy to meet the needs of the sustainable urban districts of the future. When looking for such models, several issues connected to certain transportation must be considered.
Cities must be change-makers by driving the green transition, both to provide citizens with clean and effective mobility during workdays and to encourage general clean energy-based transportation. To aid such transition, we must all look for green and innovative solutions to improve the area of mobility so healthier and more environmentally sound transportation alternatives are in the centre.
Focus City: Umeå – Digital mobility services
The city of Umeå in Sweden is looking for possible solutions to reduce the number of non-sustainable transports and improve mobility as a service for its citizens. Looking for smart and digital solutions to improve mobility as a service leading the city in the direction towards a smart and sustainable transport system.
Umeå faces a great challenge concerning the air quality, which exceed the recommended limits in the city centre. This encourages the city to undergo a transition towards clean energy to reduce the health threat for the citizens. The city needs to find combined solutions that can make the clean and sustainable transport options more attractive. A great challenge lies within finding new ways of looking at mobility as a service. Making it easy for the citizens to make the right choice by providing good sustainable mobility alternatives and thereby removing the need to own a car when living in the city.
Challenge 2: Resilience
Cities face an increasing number of challenges when it comes to being resilient to the effects of climate change, thriving with growing populations, handling of large amounts of waste and securing the provision of fresh food. Cities are therefore looking for clean and innovative solutions to help them adopt and transform to the expected and unexpected challenges of the future.
Within climate adaptation, cloudbursts are a major challenge causing an increase of heavy rain straining the cities rainwater management systems. There is a growing need to create solutions for providing buffer systems to delay the transport of rainwater under such cloudburst events. Integrating areas under playgrounds, below and next to parking spaces and roads in the rainwater systems are just some opportunities to utilize urban areas as buffer zones.
Other topics related to increasing resilience within cities include the growing trends of urban farming and roof top gardens. Such practices can help increase food security and design sustainable cities by producing fresh food in urban areas closer to the consumers. Creating more green oases in cities for recreation and leisure purposes whilst contributing to climate change mitigation will ultimately lead to healthier, cleaner and more sustainable cities.
Risks related to modern day cities with increasingly taller buildings and denser populations compromise fire safety and is becoming an increasing risk in cities. As well as waste, which by an increasing population and more wealth causes challenges for the cities. There is a need to develop intelligent and clean infrastructure, to collect the waste as well as encourage industries that can reuse waste material into new products to integrate waste handling in the sustainable urban development.
Focus City: Singapore – Urban farming & Renewable Cities
The city of Singapore is looking for innovative solutions in the nexus between architecture, engineering and sustainability, thus bridging the gap between these strategic priorities.
The city faces challenges in meeting its increasing population with clean energy, as the city (and country) today is almost completely reliant on energy import. The city is therefore interested in increasing the uptake of renewable energy while promoting urban farming communities in public housing and utilize the cities many rooftops as energy collectors and community spaces. Possibly, by designing a module that can be used for solar harvesting, while at the same time providing shading for crops in urban farms.
Solar energy, if maximised, has the potential to meet as much as a quarter of Singapore’s energy needs in 2025. The city is therefore interested in more innovative and efficient ways of deploying solar generation technologies as well as overcome the challenges of limited land and solar intermittency.
At the same time, as food security is a growing concern in Singapore, efforts to getting more Singaporeans involved in the community gardening movement are ramped up as Singapore is also almost completely reliant on food imports.
Challenge 3: Energy & Build Environment
High quality deep retrofitting and increased need for affordable housing is a key challenge for cities. Use of energy renovation is therefore part of the urban regeneration agenda as a tool to make changes and improvement in social and climate areas.
The improvement of socially vulnerable areas by using innovative ways of retrofit housing areas can contribute to job creation and improved health and living conditions.
High quality, high performing buildings with low energy demand that are built with a focus on durability and architectural quality increase the lifetime of the building, reduce maintenance cost and contribute to citizens caring and engaging more in their urban area.
For cities to create clean energy and build environments they need new solutions within sustainability, circular economy, design and digital services to reach targets and keep in line with the wishes of its citizens to create a versatile and memorable living environment. To improve the quality of living for the residents by utilizing different digital solutions in producing private and public services, while thinking about energy production, renewable energy sources and hybrid solutions for groups of buildings.
Focus City: Hamilton – Retrofitting of social housing
The city of Hamilton is looking for innovative solutions and practices related to deep retrofitting of social housing and furthermore how to increase affordable and sustainable housing. In the 20th century, Hamilton was well known for its heavy industry. However, today it has transformed into a post-industrial city. Hamilton is experiencing an influx of new residents, rising real estate prices and the re-emergence of dense commercial districts. These challenges have created an urgent need to increase the availability of affordable and sustainable housing in Hamilton.
In the face of these challenges, the City of Hamilton is initiating a city-wide retrofitting of its social housing stocks – aiming for the highest standards possible with regards to environmental sustainability and quality of life. By improving the quality of life and the economic resilience of their public housing tenants, local authorities may obtain long-term returns in the form of social inclusion, and citizens’ wellbeing.
Hamilton is looking for innovative tools to executing urban renewal processes at a management level. i.e. including; identifying where retrofitting is (most) needed, initial planning, stakeholder engagement, procurement, execution, and post-retrofit management.
Challenge 4: Smart Data for Cities
Cities increasingly utilize smart data for sustainable urban transitions. Smart data for cities makes it possible to combine data for better services. Increased amount of data hosted from sensors and other sources in the modern city has great potential to offer better decision support for public governance.
Many modern-day cities are looking for digital communication platforms that can visualize activity- and real-time data that citizen can potentially communicate and interact with, access to data could assist in creating awareness and inspiring change in behaviour, which is necessary for the transition towards a zero-emission society.
Focus City: Stavanger – Smart data for Cities
The modern city has an increased amount of data harvested from sensors – as well as existing data from the general operation of the municipality. This data has a great potential to support better decisions and offer useful predictions for public governance, if stored and mad easily available. This will in turn lead to enhanced services for the cities. Furthermore, we will be able to create a base for value creation for third part actors.
In the city challenge, we will look into what principles data storage and exchange platforms must be built on. How can municipalities share data – and algorithms – for better learning across organisations? How can sensitive data be aggregated and made easier available? How can the platform handle data protection and ownership centrally? How should external parties get access to the data platform? How can combined data from many municipalities create better market opportunities? How can a platform cater for better research? What competencies must be on board, internally and/or externally, to establish and operate such a platform? How should it be organised?
Clean Energy Hack 