THE MAKING-CITY PROJECT

Cities today have an essential role to play in tackling climate change by reducing their carbon emissions.

In the context of the Conference of the Parties (COPs) and the Paris Agreement, MAKING-CITY is an answer to urban transformation.

A H2020 PROJECT BASED ON

the PED concept

Launched in December 2018 and coordinated by the CARTIF Technology Centre, MAKING-CITY will address and demonstrate advanced procedures and methodologies based on the Positive Energy District (PED) during 72 months. A PED is defined as “a district with annual net zero energy import and net zero carbon emissions, working towards an annual local surplus production of renewable energy” in the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan).

Derived from the Positive Energy Block (PEB) definition established by the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC), a PED is a delimited urban area composed of buildings with different typologies and public spaces where the total annual energy balance must be positive. Therefore, the district will have an extra energy production that can be shared with other urban zones. The total energy balance is the energy taken from outside the district minus the energy delivered inside the district.

Even if all energy carriers can be considered as potential energy inputs and/or outputs, only primary energy units make a suitable calculation of energy flows to establish the total energy balance. Finally, achieving PEDs means that the amount of energy delivered by the district must be higher than the amount of energy supplied from outside.

MAKING-CITY about

ENERGY TRANSITION TOWARDS

A CITY VISION 2050

For a successful PED implementation, the MAKING-CITY project is considering a series of key sectors and applications which will ensure a long-term vision for energy transition. A structural shift from a system mainly based on finite energy sources such as fossil fuels, towards a system using more renewable energy sources is considered as energy transition. This significant change also leads to a better management of energy demand in addition to an increase of energy efficiency. 

Currently, city energy plans for energy transition are designed within a 2030 horizon, which can be considered as a mid-term strategy (part of the 2030 Climate & Energy Framework in Europe). Nevertheless, learning from the past to plan the future of cities for more than the next few years appears to be a real need. In MAKING-CITY, the City Vision 2050 is used as a longer timescale to address the urban energy system transformation towards low-carbon cities, bringing appropriate energy planning tools as well as reconsidering municipal organisation (creation of City Planning Offices for instance).

The implementation and/or replication of the PED concept developed by the MAKING-CITY partners include the following applications. They will be applied in two Lighthouse cities and 6 Follower cities, which you can discover here. The technologies selected in the project are mature or already on the market.

INITIATE RETROFITTING BUILDINGS

TO MAXIMISE INFRASTRUCTURE PERFORMANCE

INCREASE RENEWABLE SOURCES

TO PRODUCE SELF-SUFFICIENT GREEN ENERGY

DESIGN, ADAPT AND UPGRADE

HEATING AND COOLING SYSTEMS

DEPLOY STORAGE & TRANSFER SYSTEMS

TO ANTICIPATE ENERGY DEMAND PEAKS 

SET UP PUBLIC CHARGING STATIONS

TO BOOST ELECTRIC MOBILITY