Flexibility for
Smart Urban Energy System
FlexSUS supports city planners and decision-makers
in their cities sustainable transition towards climate neutrality.
FlexSUS
Providing a tool
for the green transition in cities
FlexSUS is a research, development and demonstration project built on a unique collaboration between municipalities and highly qualified international oriented research groups with the objective of assisting effectively the municipalities towards their carbon neutral transition.
Project overview
Giving municipalities and urban planners better insights to drive changes
FlexSUS develops a decision support platform that represents through Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping the local energy systems in two Danish municipalities, Lyngby-Taarbak and Holbæk.
The evolution of the energy sector is complemented by the unprecedented increase in digitisation thanks to the rapid development of technologies in the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and cloud computing.
Such progress, in turn, fuels the development of intelligent digital solutions that accelerate the path toward smart energy systems and urban planning for sustainable cities.
The platform allows city planners to visualize the impact that the implementation of different decarbonization scenarios would have on CO2 emissions in their territory.
The visualization tools allows for the techno-economic modelling of energy solutions utilizing multiple data sources based on machine learning and artificial intelligence, considering the main regulatory constraints that affect sustainable transition strategies at the city level.
The city of 2050
Why do cities matter to sustainability transitions?
Energy and climate issues are traditionally addressed under angle of sectorial emissions or consumption, disregarding the effects linked to geography. The territorial and urban dimension has gradually imposed itself only recently, pushed forward by local communities in the early 90s before being taken over by states.
It was not until the 2008 world Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency that the world took the actual measure of the issue and that actors started to raise awareness of this reality:
Cities contribute to climate change, accounting for approximately three-quarters of global CO2 emissions and two-thirds of global energy demand.
In OECD countries, cities account for more than 80% of inhabitants and buildings, almost 2/3 of car mobility, more than 70% of final energy consumption. In addition, cities are in permanent urban transition, on the one hand for demographic reasons, but also for reasons of adaptations. These adaptation concern population and activities transfer, renovations, modernization of infrastructures etc…
In order of magnitude, it is possible to say that between 1/3 and 1/4 of “the city of 2050” does not yet exist today, which leaves considerable room for maneuver for structural actions, including on urban forms.
It is also at the local level that many of the levers that will condition the success of the future energy transition can best be mobilized, such as energy efficiency, new low-carbon modes of transport or the integration of decentralized renewable energy resources.
Cities are finally in the best position to set up the energy transition from the perspective of sustainable and social development, as identified in the
UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Through their various roles, including urban planning and the provision of numerous services, cities are well positioned to increase the use of renewable energy in their own activities and to support the deployment of renewables more broadly, while simultaneously achieving local objectives such as mitigating climate change.
In the energy context, cities offer a lever to advance the transition towards renewable energy in all end-use sectors and to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions.
Funding programme
ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems
Joint Programming for Flourishing Innovation from Local and Regional Trials towards a Transnational Knowledge Community
This project has received funding in the framework of the joint programming initiative ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems, with support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.’
The goal of ERA-Net is to organize the learning to enable the right technologies, market designs and customer adoption to achieve the smart energy system vision & goals of Europe
For more information, visit the ERA-Net website
This initiative has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements no. 646039 and no. 775970.
Project partners
FlexSUS is a research development and demonstration project built on a unique collaboration between municipalities and an international research team dedicated to supporting them in their low carbon transition effort!
