INESC TEC involved in new European project associated with smart cities

POCITYF, the new European project with INESC TEC’s cooperation, aims at delivering a set of positive energy blocks (PEBs) – a group of at least three connected neighbouring buildings producing, on a yearly basis, more primary energy than what they use – with the purpose of elevating the citizens’ well-being. In order to achieve this goal, a set of sustainable and citizen-oriented approaches will be employed. The kick-off meeting of the project took place on 9 and 10 of October in Évora.

The POCITYF project – a Positive Energy CITY Transformation Framework – builds upon intelligent, user-driven and demand-oriented city infrastructures and services in order to foster energy efficiency, supported by substantial increase of renewable energy merit in their energy mixing in synergy with e-mobility solutions, leading to the wide deployment and the market-uptake of positive energy districts.

The cities under study in this project are selected from a set of cultural and historical protected cities in Europe and include two Lighthouse cities of Évora (Portugal) and Alkmaar (The Netherlands) and their follower cities Granada (Spain), Bari (Ιtaly), Celje (SIovenia), Ujpest (Hungary), Ioannina (Greece) and Hvidovre (Denmark). The challenge is to increase the level of smartness in cities with limited possibilities for major changes in the infrastructure and to rely on user-centric solutions for an increased efficiency. For this purpose, four Energy Transition Tracks are defined in order to address several aspects of the transition towards a smarter city, taking into account the positive energy buildings, grid flexibility, decarbonisation of the mobility sector and e-mobility, and citizen engagement strategies. This will lead to an overall of 10 integrated solutions for demonstration, comprising 73 individual innovative elements (technologies, tools, methods). The demonstration will be performed in 21 building complexes covering a total floor area of 87480 m2 with current energy needs of 13.25 GWh/year.

The POCITYF project, which will last for five years, gathers a consortium of 46 partners from 13 countries: Portugal, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and The Netherlands. INESC TEC has multiple roles in this project, in which two of its centres are involved: the Centre for Industrial Engineering and Management (CEGI) and the Centre for Power and Energy Systems Centre (CPES). On the one hand, CEGI’s researchers Lia Patrício and Luisa Souza Gonçalves are the leaders of the work package for developing citizen engagement and open innovation activities, in which the proposed strategies in this work package will be then tested in all Lighthouse and follower cities. On the other hand, CPES’s researchers Nilufar Neyestani, David Rua and Luís Miguel Miranda are involved in the cluster of the Portuguese Lighthouse of Évora and will provide several technology solutions such as charging stations for electric vehicles, along with other research and innovation support.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 864400.

 

The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UP-FEUP.

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