Smart City Solution in our Lighthouse Cities

Our three Lighthouse Cities Vitoria-Gasteiz, Tartu and Sonderborg have been working hard on smart city solutions in the fields of energy efficiency, mobility and ICT. Each City had the challenge to identify the best suitable solutions according to their needs. What came out were numerouse innovative solutions which you can find below. The structure is following the three main topics of the project energy efficiency, mobility and ICT and presenting the respective solutions of each Lighthouse City. Clicking on the title will lead you to a detailed description of each solution plus contact details in case you are interested in further information.

Want to know about monitoring data and final figures? Have a look at our Lighthouse City pages

If you need more detailed information of the monitoring and evaluation data of each city, the public paper "Evaluation: Assessment of the overall performance" will soon be available for download.

Lighthouse City Solutions - Energy Efficiency


All three lighthouse cities have made great strides towards becoming more energy efficient. To this end, the cities have built new infrastructure and upgraded existing solutions – each more impressive than the next!

Vitoria-Gasteiz

  • Retrofitting
    As one of the city’s most vulnerable neighbourhood, the Coronación district saw a considerable number of residential buildings fully renovated, including their facades, insulation, windows and doors.
  • Biomass district heating system
    In addition to the retrofitting activities, a biomass heating network was deployed in Vitoria-Gasteiz, leading to better energy prices, lower maintenance and operation costs and improved safety. 

Tartu

  • Retrofitting 
    The main idea of retrofitting activities in Tartu was to turn the Soviet-time “khrushchyovkas” into “smartovkas” buildings that offer an energy-efficient and high-quality living environment to the pilot area residents. 
  • District cooling station 
    A new district cooling system was installed in Tartu’s pilot area buildings involving a heat pump that produces heat for the district heating system by using residual heat from cooling.
  • LED lights with smart controllers
    A smart street light control system that is based on a wireless mesh technology is now installed in more than 320 new LED street lights in Tartu, including a number of detectors and sensors. 

Sonderborg

  • Retrofitting
    In Sonderborg, a total of 7 social housing departments will be fully retrofitted to reduce energy consumption, improve indoor climate and support Sonderborg in becoming a carbon-neutral city in 2029.  
  • Solar cells with battery storage in housing associations
    The combination of solar cell plants with a battery storage solution forms a reasonable alternative to feeding the produced electricity into the public grid.
  • Roadmap2025 - The Integrated Energy Plan (IEP) of Sonderborg
    How to become CO2 neutral by 2029? Sonderborg municipality has compiled the Roadmap2025 using the Integrated Energy Planning approach "Cities4ZERO" methodology, which was developed within SmartEnCity project.



Lighthouse City Solutions - Mobility


From biogas-fueled buses to electric bikes – the range of mobility actions in SmartEnCity is far and wide. Offering sustainable and environmentally conscious mobility options is key to building clean and healthy cities.

Vitoria-Gasteiz

Tartu

  •  Public bike sharing system
    As an additional mobility solution that the City of Tartu funded itself, an electric bike sharing system was set up, including 69 parking locations spanning across the entire city for maximum use and comfort.  
  • Gas buses in the whole city
    The City of Tartu has purchased 64 brand new biogas buses to serve the public transportation network – this is a major step towards the goal of making public transportation 100% based on gas in Tartu. 
  • Public EV fast chargers 
    What makes the installation of these chargers special is the fact that they are the first public electric car chargers in Estonia that can use both the CCS and CHAdeMO charging modes.
  • Reusing old EV batteries
    Tartu has quite a large electric taxi fleet and seeks to repurpose these EV batteries by developing an energy storage solution that allows to partially recharge electric taxis with renewable energy that is produced on-site with PV panels.

Sonderborg

  • New biogas buses and biogas filling stations
    As a zero-carbon mobility solution, 44 new energy-efficient buses fueled by biogas; improved digital services notifying users of departures etc. on apps and displays at major hubs; each of the new buses can carry 4 bikes on board, allowing a combined trip.
  • Public electrical vehicle charging points
    In total 31 EV chargers  have been installed in the Sonderborg area. The implementation of public electrical vehicle chargers not only increases the available infrastructure but also serves as a awareness raising point in the city.


Lighthouse City Solutions - ICT


ICT solutions not only help make life easier by providing simple, helpful data but they also play a crucial role in integrating all the smart systems of a city into a comprehensive whole.

Vitoria-Gasteiz

  • Urban management system
    The city platform developed in Vitoria-Gasteiz integrates all the existing ICT systems and enables to monitor the use of energy in the retrofitted buildings as well as to provide feedback to and get feedback from the citizens.  

Tartu

  • Smart home solution
    In addition to the retrofitting package that will see Tartu’s pilot area buildings fully renovated, the apartments will be supplied with a smart home system that connects to the Cumulocity cloud platform and enables data exchange and monitoring.
  • Tartu Smart City Portal 
    Tartus’ long term vision is to build a Digital Ecosystem for city data and services by integrating various data inputs and sensor systems together into one city ICT platform, where anyone could build their own value adding services on top of the city provided platform.

Sonderborg

  • Sonderborg ICT Platform 
    Sonderborg's long term vision is to build a Digital Ecosystem for city data and services by integrating various data inputs and sensor systems together into one City ICT Platform, where anyone could add their own Value Services and ingetrate them into the provided city platform.


Lighthouse City Solutions - Citizen Engagement


Considering the ambition and scope of the SmartEnCity project, citizen engagement and good, honest communication has been crucial from the very beginning. 

Vitoria-Gasteiz

  • Citizen engagement strategy for the retrofitting package
    Citizen engagement strategy for the retrofitting package As there are no local housing associations in the city, Vitoria-Gasteiz has prepared a citizen engagement strategy that helps to communicate and negotiate with each apartment owner of the pilot.

Tartu

  • Technical consultations and community meetings For the retrofitting activities to succeed in Tartu, the respective housing associations need to be engaged and supported throughout the planning and implementation process – for this, several consultation measures are used. 
  • Art solutions for pilot area buildings In addition to the full renovation of the pilot area buildings, the City of Tartu organised an international art competition for finding artists who will create unique artworks for the pilot building facades.     
  • Social innovation experiments
    A number of social innovation models will be experimented with in Tartu in order to facilitate behavioral change and mutual learning among the residents of the pilot area and Tartu as a whole.

Sonderborg

  • Citizen engagement program
    As part of Sonderborg’s official strategy to become a zero-carbon emission community by 2029, a citizen engagement program has been developed for involving citizens and local housing associations in retrofitting activities.