A key element in achieving energy positivity in Copenhagen is to activate the buildings in the optimisation of heat demand and supply. Copenhagen City has launched several new initiatives to achieving active interaction between buildings and district heat supply together with HOFOR district heating company.
An example is the NetZeroCities project “Flexumers4Future” where the aim is to achieve confirmation that building heat flexibility can in fact deliver CO2 savings and to determine what business model can best be applied to activate the flexibility. In an Interreg-ÖKS project starting this September, Copenhagen will together with three other cities (Oslo, Høje Taastrup, and Gladsaxe) test a variety of flexibility solutions for buildings with complex building management systems. The ambition is to stimulate innovation and a greater variety in the market for flexibility solutions so that building owners have multiple options and thereby can avoid technical and IT “lock-in”.
Other cities including some of the ATELIER cities will provide peer input to this project so that the developed solutions hopefully will be relevant to a wide range of different contexts within the EU. Furthermore, HOFOR has just launched a project to transform an entire city district to lower temperature district heating that also will provide details on what is required from the different buildings in order to cope with the new supply situation.
Author: Kirsten Dyhr-Mikkelsen, City of Copenhagen
Picture Credits: City of Copenhagen