Climate friendly housing districts and RESPONSE – project
The RESPONSE project aims to develop sustainable and energy-positive residential areas by implementing new energy-positive technologies for energy production, building technology and mobility. The project is done in cooperation with the Student Village, where the integrated solutions will be implemented. The core idea is to create an environmentally friendly residential area that produces more energy annually than what it consumes.
Purpose
Climate neutral cities by 2050
The purpose of the RESPONSE-project is to create sustainable and safe cities while simultaneously improving the quality of life and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
The project aims to find out how the energy production and -consumption of cities as well as its safety, equality and affordability can be combined with the sustainability of the environment on building, block and district levels.The project is based on interconnected energy supplies and services that promote energy sustainability.
RESPONSE project has been funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 framework programme. In addition to Turku, the project’s other main partner is Dijon in France. The solutions created by these two cities will be presented in the six partner cities of the project in Europe.
Results
City of Turku creates and executes energy positive blocks and districts during the project. The pilot area in Turku is the Student Village where the project’s solutions are applied to new buildings in the district as well as to few older properties.
Current energy related emissions of the Student Village are 1064 t CO2 eq yearly. After the project these emissions are estimated to be only 10 t CO2 eq yearly.
Ten integrated solutions will be created during the project:
– Increase RES Generation
– Energy-Efficient and Smart-Ready Buildings
– Electricity Storage
– Heat Storage
– Integrated City and Interconnected City Ecosystems
– Smart Mobility and City Planning
– Citizen Participation, Empowerment and Awareness-Rising
– Decarbonizing District: Heating/Cooling Networks
– Decarbonizing Electricity Grid Networks
– City Resilience, Social Justice and Safety
The RESPONSE project has long-term goals and will provide affordable, sustainable and climate-friendly housing for the students living in Ylioppilaskylä also in the future. Finally, the result of the project will correspond the climate goals of the City of Turku to be a carbon-neutral by 2029 and climate-positive onwards.
Implementation
By implementing practical solutions, the project aims to improve the energy self-sufficiency and energy efficiency of housing districts. One of the goals is to increase the amount of locally produced renewable energy used in the district. New solutions are also created to be able to integrate electric vehicles into the grid and in the student village alternative modes of transport are tested.
Energy-positive housing technologies will be tested and developed together with top experts. For example, return heat from district cooling and renewable district heating are utilized as a heat source. Simultaneously the 5G mobile network will be piloted by bringing street light poles with a base station to the street view. Some of the poles will contain sensors measuring air quality. The implementation also aims to test and combine other already existing data and to enable the digitalization of services. New solutions are constantly being explored to connect renewable energy to the real estate and public electricity distribution network. Turku Student Village is the first project where these aforementioned energy-friendly alternatives have been introduced.
The project also requires strong investment from its residents, which is why implementation will be carried out in cooperation with residents. The aim is to bring citizens and stakeholders together with experts for developing solutions.
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