PED-EU-NET | COST ACTION CA19126
Positive Energy Districts European Network
Description of the Action
Europe is set to be a global role model in energy transition. It has made significant progress in building level innovations and is now stepping up efforts towards city-wide transformation with the pioneering concept of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). The EU’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) has set out a vision to create 100 PEDs in Europe by 2025. The concept of PEDs is emerging and the knowledge and skills needed for the planning and designing, implementation and monitoring, as well as replication and mainstreaming of PEDs are yet to be advanced. The challenge is cross sectors and domains, thus the solutions can only be found through collective innovation.
This COST Action will drive the deployment of PEDs by harmonising, sharing and disseminating knowledge and breakthroughs on PEDs across different stakeholders, domains and sectors at the national and European level. It will establish a PED innovation eco-system to facilitate open sharing of knowledge, exchange of ideas, pooling of resources, experimentation of new methods and co-creation of novel solutions across Europe. Additionally, this COST Action will support the capacity building of new generation PED professionals, Early Career Investigators as well as experienced practitioners. It will mobilise the relevant actors from and across Europe to collectively contribute to the long-term climate neutral goal.
Background
The European Union (EU) fully recognises the significance of sustainable development, it aims to reduce its carbon footprint and make Europe a global role model in energy transition. The EU Council has set targets on greenhouse gas reduction, renewable energy production and energy efficiency for 2020 and 2030, which paves the way to the long-term goal of a climate neutral economy by 2050. Since buildings account for 40% of energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emission in the EU, transformation of the built environment is a key step in the climate neutral strategy.
Europe has made significant progress in building level innovations as seen in the development of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEBs). It is now stepping up efforts towards city-wide transformation with the pioneering concept of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs), which builds on the paradigm of smart cities. The concept of PEDs is evolving, it still needs to be refined, advanced, demonstrated, implemented and replicated. This COST Action will drive the deployment of PEDs by facilitating knowledge and experience exchange as well as collaboration in research and innovations among cities, industry and research organisations so as to contribute to the long-term climate neutral goal of the EU.
Transformation of the building sector is one of the main challenges that Europe is facing and the large-scale deployment of NZEBs is seen as one of the essential means. However, for Europe to be climate neutral by 2050 requires commitments beyond NZEBs. It demands scaling up of efforts from the building level to the district and eventually city level.
To stimulate the energy transition in cities, the European Commission endorsed the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan) Action 3.2 “Smart Cities and Communities”. The main objective is to develop integrated and innovative solutions for the planning, deployment, and replication of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). According to the SET Plan Action 3.2 document, 100 PEDs are expected to be in concrete planning, construction or operation, synergistically connected to the energy system in Europe by 2025.
Europe is poised to enable transitions towards a climate neutral economy and the concept of PEDs will be introduced in the energy planning of many cities and communities in the coming years. Cross-fertilisation to optimise efforts, maximise synergies and minimise costly mistakes is the need of the hour. How to support cities and empower communities to achieve the positive energy transformation is the next challenge beyond the state of the art.
This COST Action will build up a PED innovation eco-system that helps to find solutions to the diverse challenges stemming from different domains. It will do so by bolstering dialogues among relevant stakeholders and stimulating collaboration along and across domains and sector-specific value chains. This is key to co-create solutions for the planning, financing, deployment, replication and mainstreaming of PEDs. It will harmonise, share and disseminate knowledge and breakthroughs on PEDs in different domains at a European level. It will explore various forms of governance involving public-private-people partnerships and provide insight into practical approaches for evidence-based governance for the development of PEDs. This will lead to increased knowledge sharing both within and outside European research organisations and encourage mashup innovation across academia, industry, cities and communities.
Objectives
Research Coordination Objectives
- Harmonise, share and disseminate knowledge and breakthroughs on Positive Energy Districts across different stakeholders (academia, industry, cities and communities), domains (technological, social, economic, financial, legal and regulatory) and sectors (buildings, energy, mobility and ICT) at the national and European level;
- Co-create a Positive Energy District innovation eco-system centred on public-private-people partnerships by engaging and empowering citizens and generating shared value for public and private actors;
- Consolidate common definitions, requirements, indicators, guides and tools to evaluate the performance and optimise the design, operation, financing and opportunities of Positive Energy Districts;
- Advance the knowledge, skills, experience and capacity needed in Europe to support the planning and designing, implementation and monitoring, as well as replication and mainstreaming of Positive Energy Districts;
- Support activities to close the gap between science, policy makers and society by aligning interests of different stakeholders and synthesising their contributions on national as well as EU strategies and initiatives (e.g. SET Plan Action 3.2)
Capacity-building Objectives
- Establish an interdisciplinary network of over 50 participating organisations with over 100 active researchers and practitioners from across Europe by the end of the first programme year to exchange knowledge, transfer skills and share experience on topics related to Positive Energy Districts;
- Provide intensive training to Early Career Investigators (ECIs) from across Europe on topics related to Positive Energy Districts and strengthen focused collaboration among expert Action members who will serve as trainers;
- Provide learning opportunities to ECIs through research exchange outside their home country in the form of STSMs on topics related to Positive Energy Districts;
- Offer opportunities to both experienced researchers and ECIs to present their research to the wider community through conferences and workshops;
- Establish a record of scholarship in the field of Positive Energy Districts through publication of journal special issues, conference proceedings, peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers. The publications will be made open access to facilitate the widest possible dissemination of the research;
- Scope the opportunities for follow-up and spin-off projects to pave way for further collaboration.
