ENERGY TRANSITION OF CITIES: THE END OF THE STARDUST PROJECT AND THE POSITIVE ENERGY DISTRICTS ACCORDING TO ANNEX83-EBC-IEA

The Department of Energy Transition of Cities is organizing two important events on the decarbonization of urban environments between 26 and 29 February next year:

• On 28 and 29 February, the final conference of the STARDUST project on Smart Cities will take place at the Baluarte Auditorium in Pamplona, where, on the first day, its most relevant results will be presented, which include the implementation of innovative solutions in three lighthouse cities (Pamplona, Tampere and Trento), while, on the second day, a specific conference on decarbonization of cities will be held, through a series of round tables in which different experts will reflect on the key aspects to be taken into account for the decarbonization of European cities in the coming years.
• The next meeting of the IEA Annex 83 on POSITIVE ENERGY DISTRICTS will be held at CENER between the 26th and the 27th February, which will bring together researchers on this subject from prestigious research centers and universities.

STARDUST PROJECT FINAL CONFERENCE:

STARDUST (https://stardustproject.eu/ ) is a research project, funded by the European Commission within the Smart Cities and Communities call of the Horizon 2020 research program.

It is coordinated by the National Renewable Energy Centre – CENER, and has 30 partners from 9 European countries, that have been working for six years on the development, implementation and monitoring of different solutions aimed at improving the quality of life of citizens through innovative actions in the field of energy, buildings and sustainable mobility, thanks to the use of advanced solutions in the field of digitization.

At the heart of STARDUST is the collaboration between the six cities participating in the project, which are Pamplona, Tampere (Finland), Trento (Italy), Derry (UK), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), and Kozani (Greece) and their respective local innovation ecosystems.

The aim of STARDUST is the development and validation of innovative solutions in the field of building refurbishment, energy infrastructures and sustainable mobility, not only from a technological point of view, but also from a social and economic point of view, proposing business models that allow the actions carried out to be replicated. During the Final Conference of the project on 28th February, the main achievements of STARDUS will be presented, being able to visit during the afternoon the new heating network of the Txantrea neighbourhood, the line 9 of electric vans, the integration of the bus recharging pantograph with the microgrid of the UPNA…

The 29th of February will bring together leading experts in the field of energy transition of cities at European level, who will reflect on the decarbonization of urban environments from different points of view: research, planning and implementation of actions, financing tools and, finally, the development of roadmaps to achieve the objectives set by European directives in this area.

POSITIVE ENERGY DISTRICTS: ANNEX 83 EBC-IEA MEETING AT CENER:

The basic principle of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) is to create an area within city boundaries capable of generating more energy than it consumes, introducing flexibility and intelligence in its management in order to cope with variations in the energy market.

The objective of Annex 83 (https://annex83.iea-ebc.org/) of the IEA (International Energy Agency) EBC (Energy in Buildings and Communities) program is developing and in-depth definition of PEDs, as well as collecting the technologies, planning tools and decision-making process that enable the development of PEDs.

Annex 83 consists of 4 subtasks:

• Subtask A: Definitions and context.
• Subtask B: Methods, tools and technologies for the realizing of Positive Energy Districts
• Subtask C: Organizing principles and impact assessment
• Subtask D: Demonstrations, Implementation and Dissemination

CENER co-leads Subtask D for the development of a database that collects the most relevant examples of PEDs, and that allows validating the main conclusions of the rest of the subtasks.

The Workshop on 26 and 27 February will take place at CENER, so that the Annex 83 researchers will have the opportunity to visit the center’s facilities.