EUKN - European Urban Knowledge Network - Heerhugowaard: Suncities project

Heerhugowaard: Suncities project

Introduction

The SunCities project is a demonstration project supported by the European Commission under the Fifth Framework Programme and contributing to the implementation of the Key Action "Cleaner energy systems, including renewables" within the specific programme for RTD and demonstration on "Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development - Part B: Energy program". Stad van de Zon - reflections, a bilingual book describing the making of the largest urban solar and CO2 neutral development in europe was released on September 23. This book contains 20 stories and beautiful pictures and detailed design information on the dutch project SunCities in Heerhugowaard.

Description

This ambitious and innovative project has four objectives:

European local and regional authorities will demonstrate that they can implement a significant part of the EC targets on CO2 and PV, within their own built environment. Together with relevant market parties such as project developers, utilities and the building industry they will implement zero-emission urban developments with 1760 new houses and 3.05 MWp of PV.
To demonstrate that PV can be implemented in a normal but appealing way when fully integrated in the urban planning and the building process on an entire housing development site.
The considerable cost reduction to less than 3.5 Euro/Wp in 2004 in several member states for the large-scale application of building integrated PV.
To disseminate the results of the integral approach and to reduce risks associated with PV to increase the uptake by the traditionally risk-avoiding building industry.

Description of the work

The project will be implemented by environmentally ambitious municipalities, dedicated project developers, utilities, architects, and urban planners. It consists of 4 local projects of new housing developments of building integrated PV power (total 3.05 MWp): a flagship project in the NL (1,410 houses, zero energy, 2.45 MWp) and satellite projects in the UK (250 houses, zero energy, 0.4 MWp), DE (50 houses, low energy, 0,1 MWp), and ES (50 houses, low energy, 0.1 MWp. The dwellings contain energy saving measures to reduce electricity and heating consumption and other renewable energy options (solar hot water, heat pumps, in-town wind turbines, or small scale hydro).

The work consists of adopting PV into the urban planning process, the energy infrastructure planning, the architectural design, and the electrical grid layout by the project developers involved. The implementation is effectuated by joint tendering of PV systems and roof integration (turn-key) open to European PV suppliers to minimise costs especially for the satellite projects.

Technical monitoring of PV systems will be performed on a global basis. Detailed monitoring will be done on the interaction of multiple inverters with the grid. Dissemination of experiences will be facilitated by working groups, an interactive web site with video footage starting already during the building phase. This enables visitors to virtually experience the construction progress. Replication and market uptake will be stimulated by developing handbooks and risk abatement strategies for project developers, the building industry and municipalities.

Innovative are the zero-emission with PV on this scale, the integration of PV in the urban planning and energy planning approach, the joint tendering, the cost reductions achieved by this approach and scale and the inter-active dissemination strategy.

Results

SunCities has been successful and is delivering its main results and reaching its main objectives:

Establishment of low to zero-emission new housing developments with PV. A total of 8 housing developments with 1.621 dwellings have been built and fit with PV systems for a total of 2.189 MWp – note that here the Netherlands counts as one development. This is 72% of the project plan. In the next 2 years, the total will be increased to 3 MWp. The flagship project in the Netherlands is achieving CO2 neutrality. In the UK and DE, significant CO2 savings have been achieved as well. Integration in urban planning is possible, and leads to wealth in design and type of PV panels.
Assessment of the PV-related risks and risk abatement strategies for project developers: a risk handbook was produced and distributed giving practical guidelines for future project developments.
Replication costs of building integrated grid-connected PV in housing projects. Replication costs range from 4.30 to 11.70 Euro/Wp in the projects implemented, around the target costs of the project. Technically, the issue of low-cost mounting of PV on roofs has now been solved and engineered, thanks to the scale of the project in the Netherlands. Reaching the replication target, however, is only partly due to the SunCities project since PV market developments have boomed and led to volume of scale advantages in other projects.
A flagship and landmark to future replication and follow up projects all through Europe with extensive exposure of the project. The exposure in the Netherlands and UK has been large: ministerial visits, BBC coverage, national newspaper coverage, and many visits. Stad van de Zon achieves 244,000 hits on Google and over 2 million in Yahoo. To show the entire PV community the project, Heerhugowaard is attracting the 2009 EU PV Conference to the Netherlands, and aims to host an event during that conference. Interest has been significant as indicated by visits of delegations from all parts of the world.
The PV performance was monitored according to the monitoring plan. It shows that for those systems where monitoring was concluded, the PR ranges between 0.60 and 0.81. The Energy Yield is between 522 and 953 kWh/kWp per year. More monitoring results will become available the next years. Monitoring of the social acceptance was done as well. It is concluded that for the majority of the house buyers the PV systems are no argument to purchase.

The policy framework

The EC has ambitious goals for CO2 reduction, for the increase of the share of renewable energy in the energy mix, and for Photovoltaic Solar Energy as a specific measure. The contribution of renewable energy tot the total energy muse will have grown form 6% now to 12% in the year 2010, while the objective for PV is 3 GWp to be installed in 2010. B. On a level of 1 to 40 houses is has been proven that it is technically possible to built or renovate those houses in such a way that there is on a yearly base no net CO2 emission. Between 2000 and 2010 over 20 million new houses will be built for European citizens and an equal amount of houses will be structurally renovated in large scale renovations. This offers a great opportunity top realise a significant contribution to the CO2 and renewable energy goals for 2010 and beyond.

Lessons learned

During the course of the project, several severe problems had to be overcome, mainly market and policy developments, changes in Dutch support system for PV, drastically worsened market situation for new-built houses in the Netherlands and DE, Scarcity of panels due to booming demand in Germany led to higher prices than foreseen. Refurbishment of houses seems to have emerged in several countries including the Netherlands, as a major new target market for CO2 neutrality and thus for PV. Many lessons have been learned during this project. Here we give the five major learned which should be taken into account in next projects are:

To reach zero-emission with PV in (large scale) new housing projects, PV should be thought of in an early stage of the development.
PV should be integrated entirely in the standard building process and urban project development and not as a separate project.
For an aesthetical integration of PV in large scale urban developments use a variety in PV systems (modules, mounting, integration, size).
Large scale PV projects should only be done when there is a stable (national) financial support system such as a feed-in tariff.
For the implementation of innovative PV projects (in technology or scale) a certain amount of risk is unavoidable and prolonged leadership is necessary.

Project start date

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Document type

case

Themes

Urban Policy

Keywords