City-zen, a balanced approach to the city of the future

Solutions developed

City-zen deals with the development of the city of the future. The project has three major goals, 1- to realize more effective collaboration models and a methodology for development of smart cities, 2- to connect with industry, and have them develop technology to the benefit of smart cities and 3- to showcase to society ambitious pilot projects. Main idea for this project is that after successful implementations in topics such as district heating, energy grids, local energy generation, energy efficiency for housing, now it is time for the next big step: integrated flexible open infrastructures. The demonstrators in Amsterdam and Grenoble include retrofitting 105000 m2 of housing to levels down to 53 kWh/m2, showing average savings of the order of 80%. Furthermore they include fully-functional smart grid development, electricity storage demonstrators, free cooling schemes and district heating efficiency improvements.

Main results

This project is being implemented in Amsterdam and Grenoble where several innovative solutions are demonstrated in the field of smart grid, heat networks and sustainable housing. A second low temperature loop will be constructed and therefore, the entire thermal network will be provided by renewable energy.