Overview

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Common Challenge

<br />Cities with their vast building stock and infrastructure play a key role in reaching European energy efficiency targets. With approximately 75% of the EU population living in cities and urban areas, they account for large amounts of the current energy consumption and represent crucial spaces where the energy transition must take place.Transforming the existing urban structures provides great energy efficiency potential. Yet, the transition towards low-emission cities is often hampered by sectoral fragmentation and lack of cooperation between public authorities, energy utilities and property owners. AREA 21 addresses these challenges and supports cities in the Baltic Sea Region to harness the full energy savings potential of existing structures, to elaborate holistic strategies that integrate sector-based approaches, and to engage energy consumers in strategic energy planning.<br />

<br />AREA 21 aims to provide local authorities, energy agencies and other institutions responsible for energy planning with the know-how and strategic tools on how to plan and implement new solutions for energy efficiency in urban districts. To achieve this, the project develops and tests new formats of cooperation between public authorities, energy providers, public property owners and citizens. Together across seven locations in the Baltic Sea Region, this project will facilitate public organisations and private actors to work together in elaborating holistic strategies and implementing context-specific measures in Energy Improvement Districts.AREA 21 builds on the following main pillars of activities:</p><li>Holistic: Develop strategies on a district level to promote the integration of sectoral practices and the use of synergies between existing processes, measures and resources.</li><li>Cooperative: Test new cooperation formats to strengthen the capacity of public actors towards using new communication and planning tools.</li><li>Participatory: Involve the different parties in all steps of the energy planning, implementation and decision making process to facilitate the generation and testing of new ideas.</li><li>Engaging: Invite energy consumers to be part of strategic energy planning to better understand end-users’ motives and to facilitate implementation of new energy efficiency solutions.</li><li>Technological: Promote the use of smart technologies to facilitate the energy planning process, to test new forms of public participation, to raise awareness about the individual energy consumption and to promote behaviour change.</li><li>Educational: Develop concepts, test solutions and transfer knowledge to other cities and regions to support the transition towards low-emission urban structures in Europe.</li>
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<br />The Energy Improvement District (EID) concept is an innovative system approach for low emission urban districts. It promotes a paradigm change from a strong public sector to a more cooperative model of development that involves also citizens and businesses. The concept facilitates the pooling of competences, ideas and joint activities between public and private stakeholders for energy efficiency planning and implementation. By promoting network and consensus-building activities it fosters identification of tailor-made solutions, piloting of new projects and establishment of both informal cooperation and formalized partnerships.The newly developed concept addresses the specific challenges and needs of European cities. It will be implemented as a framework within selected areas of partner cities and will offer the opportunity to involve public property owners and citizens as building owners and users in the initiation of energy efficiency measures.<br />