AREA 21 – Energy Efficiency in Urban Districts
The AREA 21 project partners develop and implement so-called “Energy Improvement Districts” (EIDs) for improved cooperation of stakeholders involved in energy planning. The EID concept will be implemented in seven cities of the Baltic Sea region.
Whereas strict regulations on energy saving and technical developments increasingly raise the energy efficiency of new buildings, there have been so far hardly any well-integrated concepts available for built-up urban areas which take a look at the district and its interdependence of actors as a whole. As is the case with any project of this kind, the range of actors to be included in energy planning has become increasingly complex and cooperative planning instruments gain evermore significance.
AREA 21 (Baltic Smart City Areas for the 21st Century) adopts a cooperation approach jointly developing a set of integrated energy efficiency measures at district level. The project partners want to create so-called “Energy Improvement Districts” in different cities across the Baltic Sea region. These districts shall serve as good examples demonstrating how local actors can be involved and how concepts and strategies for energy planning can be devised in collaboration with relevant actors.
The project promotes not only energy efficiency in built-up districts, but also aims at making the related know-how and process knowledge available to interested stakeholders from other cities across Europe. The experiences and the knowledge generated by AREA 21 shall all contribute in the future to achieving the long-term goal of developing a climate neutral building stock at the local, regional and national level.
REM Consult supported the Lead Partner (HafenCity University Hamburg) already in the project’s development phase and has now been contracted with the project and financial management of AREA 21.
