Sharing knowledge at a European level
FED is an EU-financed innovation project being run by the City of Gothenburg within the Urban Innovative Action programme, UIA. Its aim is to create smart local energy communities in which fossil-based energy peaks can be kept to a minimum, external energy imports can be reduced, while establishing a digital market place. The FED project will uniquely cover three energy carriers: electricity, heating and cooling.
“Energy efficiency has been high on our agenda for many years. We will use the FED project to see how we can offer our customers more renewable production and examine our role in a changing energy landscape”, says Patrik Arvsell of Göteborg Energi.
The test bed will be located in the Chalmers area of Johanneberg, Gothenburg. It has an ideal configuration of property owners, energy infrastructure and users. The area is outside the energy distribution concession, which will provide the opportunity for testing and evaluating a local energy market. The digital market place will maximise the use of low quality energy to replace primary energy. One building’s energy requirements will be offset against the surplus in another.
The aim of the day in Brussels was to show how with the aid of resources from the European Commission’s Urban Innovative Actions initiative, we are testing new solutions to address urban challenges using the City of Gothenburg as an example.
In his welcome address, Sebastian Marx, Head of the City of Gothenburg’s Brussels office, noted that the guests represented a diverse range of interests, all having a fossil-free future as a common objective.
Edouard Gatineau, project officer for Urban Innovation Action, presented the programme and current updates. Iréne Svensson, Claes Sommanson from Johanneberg Science Park and Patrik Arvsell from Göteborg Energi, outlined the FED project.
“The FED project is an exciting initiative within the UIA. It’s great that cities can now apply directly for funding for more innovative projects. UIA is perceived as being less bureaucratic and more flexible. This will significantly relieve the regional funding sources” says Isabelle Poli, DG Regio, EU Commission.