Learning from economists: The inefficiency of efficiency. Transform post #23

Why on earth should we focus on energy efficiency and why does it hardly have any effect?

Some weeks ago I wrote about the energetic effect of refurbished dwellings, for which the city of Amsterdam invested 33.5 million Euros in the last years. Monitoring the effects is done by using the European standard for Energy Labels. It turns out that the diminishing effects are dramatically low: 1.65 metric tons CO2 instead of the upfront calculated 5.5 metric tons.

The economist William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) was the first to describe the effect of inefficient efficiency measures. It is therefore called “Jevons Paradox”. In his book “The Coal Question” (1865) he describes the explosive growth of coal production after the energetic improvements of the steam engine by James Watt. In advance people assumed that great improvements in the steam engine would have a devastating effect on the coal industry. But the opposite was thru. Because of the great improvements the sale of steam engines soared and so was the production of coal.

Modern economists call this the “Rebounce effect”, which occurs after every energy-saving innovation. It is what we see everywhere around us: in our homes, our electrical appliances and the cars we drive.

Why should we proceed with energy efficiency? I think it is more effective and cost effective to invest in sustainable energy first, instead of the other way around. If you reduce the amount of energy needed in your house by 30% it takes two more years to burn the same amount of fuel compared to a not refurbished home: seven instead of five years. This is only a delay for the amount of energy we use and the amount of CO₂ pushed into the atmosphere. Better invest in sustainable energy!

Investing in clean energy production like solar, wind, bio and especially the needed storage facilities feels more in tune with our strive for a cleaner world, solving problems of depletion, climate change and geopolitical constraints! What is your opinion?

Ronald van Warmerdam
Sr project manager Projectmanagement Bureau, city of Amsterdam / lecturer TuDelft / Coordinator TRANSFORM

https://twitter.com/rvwarmerdam

Innovation Partnership

‘Can we tender innovation’ Ronald van Warmerdam asked himself and us in his blog on August 11, 2014. Sure we can I would dare to say, but maybe not in the way we are used to. As Ronald stated in his article: the traditional procedures will not fit the demands of owners searching for innovation and will not fit suppliers who want to sell or develop innovative products.

Maybe there is a solution at hand. On March 28, 2014 the European Union published the tender directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement. One of the new items in this directive is the so called Innovation Partnership. A new tendering procedure specifically for the development and following purchase of innovative products, works and services. This procedure can be used under the agreed conditions for the products, works or services.

Goal of this new type of tendering is the stimulation of innovation and to support member states to reach their goals towards a more sustainable economic growth.

This procedure can be used in situations when there is a need for an innovative product, work or service what is not already available in the market. The contracting authority can enter in a partnership with the aim to develop and purchase the innovative products, works or services. A full swing tendering procedure is not mandatory in this situation.

Procedure

Article 31 of the public procurement directive 2014/24/EU describes the Innovation Partnership procedure. In general the following aspects define the procedure for an Innovation Partnership:

• The procedure has to be published by the contracting authority.
• Any economic operator can submit a request for participation in the procedure. The contracting authority can decide if it will enter into the partnership with one or more partners.
• During procedures the contacting authority can reduce the number of tenders on the basis of specific award criteria specified in the tender documents.
• The partnership is structured in several successive phases following the sequence of steps in the research and innovation process. The partnership sets intermediate targets to be attained.
• The contracting authority can, after each phase, decide to end the partnership or reduce the numbers of partners if this possibility and the relevant conditions are already mentioned in the procurement documents.

In conclusion

How will this stimulate innovation in Smart City development?

In any way this new procedure within the European public procurement directive offers contracting authorities the opportunity to set out the problem without defining any directions for the answer upfront. As stated in Ronald’s blog ‘you cannot describe something you don’t know’. Any such description is not necessary anymore in the innovation partnership procedure. Parties entered in the partnership work alongside in the development of products, works or services that are useful to fulfill the contracting authority’s needs.

The Innovation Partnership is a new procedure in the European procurement directive without a track record. The usability of the procedure has to prove itself in the future. In any case I expect innovation will no longer be blocked by the rules of European procurement. The Innovation Partnership offers a good opportunity for stimulation of innovation towards sustainable economic growth and smart, innovative cities. The step by step approach Ronald promotes is clearly made possible by this Innovation Partnership.

Mr. Dik van Manen
Senior adviseur Contracteren en Aanbesteden
Twynstra Gudde

My Transform Story. Transform post #23

The Transform project is working towards the end meeting in June 2015. It is our task to finish our work and show the added value of this project to our colleagues, directors and politicians. But how can we bring about a project that is so vast, complex and challenging?

How do we explain people that have no time to read thick reports full of jargon, abbreviations and background information? Framing the project and telling compelling and convincing stories of our experience is therefore needed.

In the last weeks I understood that my story, based on my experience, will be different than the experience and the story of all my colleagues and partners in TRANSFORM. I also realized that I can tell multiple stories: about the content, about the experience of European cooperation, about the struggle that transformation is, about coordination, about true partnership or about organization and strategy.

I would like to challenge my fellow transformers to tell their personal experience in a post and share it in the coming months.

Transform is solving problems

Last year I attended the Smart City Event in Amsterdam and one of the speakers explained about “smart parking solutions”. He told that in his city the parking places were equipped with sensors. When a car leaves and the parking lot becomes empty it is detected and shown on an smart phone app. New visitors can look on the app and know where they can park.

It sounds smart but it is stupid.

If 1.500 car drivers use the app and start rushing your town in the direction of the free lot, 1.499 cars will be too late. Causing traffic jams, polluting the city, and maybe causing accidents, annoying pedestrians and cyclist. Maybe the app is a smart solution if one person owns it but for the city it solves nothing. It only causes problems.

TRANSFORM solves real problems

For energy transition TRANSFORM developed a two-step approach: 1) Visualizing energy usage and potential data and 2) modeling solutions to involve stakeholders.

The energy system of cities is rather vast and complex. My city counts 400.000 homes and thousands of offices and business buildings; all connected to infrastructures like electricity, sewerage, data, gas and phone. The other sites of the grids are facilities like power plants, data centers, cleaning facilities and gas producers.

If it comes to energy Amsterdam is almost completely reliant on fossil fuels like gas for heating, electricity is mostly produced by fossil fuels as well. You can imagine that transforming the system towards a low carbon, or better non-carbon, is complex and challenging. Most people know that change is needed and you probably know the reasons why.

Step one: Visualizing big data

To start transition we first need to visualize! Explaining and convincing politicians, civilians, partners and stakeholders is one of the first challenges of Transform. Vast amounts of data (Big Data) are collected and visualized on the map of the city giving the people insight in their energy world. The result you can find on www.maps.amsterdam.nl.

Next step: Modeling solutions and involve stakeholders

The next step is the “Decision Support Tool” tool. Accenture and AIT, two transform partners has built an energy simulation tool, on which I posted before, that is able to simulate and show transformation measures for urban energy development and redevelopment. Based on the outcomes, cities and all stakeholders can develop their transformation agenda and business case: a smart solution for cities that want to transform their energy systems.

Making a difference

Transform is not building gadgets but offering real smart solutions with positive impact for cities. Transform aims to help cities to transform building low carbon energy infrastructure and smart urban planning. Solutions like energy mapping and the decision support environment will help cities in a positive way to solve real problems based on real data.

Ronald van Warmerdam
Sr project manager Projectmanagement Bureau, city of Amsterdam / lecturer TuDelft / Coordinator TRANSFORM

https://twitter.com/rvwarmerdam

Future city design

In the light of climate change, but also the densification and expansion of cities, the microclimate in cities is expected to deteriorate. Cities will have increasing problems to cope with water excess and extreme heat and draught. The research project Urban Climate Design Engineering is focussing on means to control and improve the urban microclimate.

Infographic design by Studio Lakmoes http://www.studiolakmoes.nl

The applicability for the Dutch urban contexts is studied by simulating the effects of adaptation measures on thermal comfort and through design studies. Adaptation measures you can think of is additional green and water, especially a combination of the two, apply shading devices for indoor and outdoor spaces, use roof and façade surfaces for green, water and energy production.

The aim is to develop design guidelines for the most common neighbourhood typologies. There is, for example, a great difference between the effectiveness of additional trees in a so-called ‘garden city’ or in an historical city centre where trees are scarce.

For more information please contact Laura Kleerekoper or click here (website) or here (academic publication).

Laura Kleerekoper
PhD - candidate, Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft

E-mail Laura Kleerekoper

The challenge of energy transition. Transform post #22

On January 9^th Delft University of Technology celebrated its 173th anniversary. The theme “Intelligent Cities: Sustainability and Big Data” was addressed by several speakers and ten PHD researchers on the field of architecture and information technology. Professor Andy van den Dobbelsteen gave a presentation on Sustainable city development and Professor Anthony Townsend, writer of the famous book “Smart Cities”, came to Delft to give a key note speech and to receive an honorary doctorate degree.

It was a very interesting day!

I would like to share my experience and thoughts.

As I noticed before, Smart City discussion and conferences tend to focus on the nice and attractive things we can do with ICT, gadgets, apps, data, and sensors etcetera. Most of the examples given are inspiriting, innovative and sometimes joyful. Townsend gave us the example of the plant that tells you when it needs water! That is fun! Once again it was explained that ICT and the growing internet of things can make our daily live more convenient, easy and joyful by giving information about heath, traffic, and public transport. ICT and the web are connecting us to others and more and more to our stuff. ICT and Big Data can also give us the information to design better and to improve urban re-planning.

All these applications and tools are very smart. But I wonder if these kinds of innovations are going to make our cities really sustainable? This was also the issue addressed during the day. Will ICT be the real enabler for energy transformation and phasing out carbon based fuels in our quest towards a sustainable society?

At this moment more than half of the worlds’ population lives in cities. These cities use a vast amount of energy and are therefore dependent on fossil fuels like gas, petrol and coal. Because of depletion of fossil fuels and to prevent dangerous climate change this dependency of fossil fuels has to change. The whole energy infrastructure of new and existing cities, away from carbon, is enormously complex and almost beyond imagination. An app or a funny gadget is not going to change that.

The developments of the city of Portland were mentioned as a leading example. This city made, like we aim for in Transform, its whole energy economy visible by mapping data about consumption, distribution, production, transport, buildings and renewable energy potentials. In the real spirit of Transform! This is what Amsterdam accomplished as well by building the Energy Atlas Amsterdam. To involve stakeholders and to simulate different future scenario’s AIT and Accenture are developing an Energy Transition Decision Support environment.

In an interview I found on the web Townsend states: “A lot of the vision of smart cities has been shaped by IT engineers and marketers. The problem there is not just that it’s sort of a naïve vision being pushed by companies with very short-term sales goals. It just doesn’t appreciate the complexity of good urbanism, and the role that both communications and information play in creating good places that people want to buy, work, live in”.

In my opinion it doesn’t appreciate the challenge and complexity of the energy transition as well. Transform offers us the opportunity to support the energy transition of our cities, to tackle energy challenges and to help us transform away from carbon. But it is not only DATA and ICT that will bring the solutions. Transformation is even more about governance, equity, citizen’s involvement and democracy.­­

One statement Anthony I fully agree with is that the internet is not about virtual spaces but about real physical places. Electricity is maybe not to grab (do not try this at home) but the infrastructure of energy, gas, coal and sustainable solutions are nothing more than physical. Let’s combine this world to the world of massive data and find the appropriate solutions! Let’s TRANSFORM!

Ronald van Warmerdam
Sr project manager Projectmanagement Bureau, city of Amsterdam / lecturer TuDelft / Coordinator TRANSFORM

https://twitter.com/rvwarmerdam

Transform Mobility. Transform post #21

Two Transform cities; Copenhagen and Amsterdam have a similar division of mobility. The division of mobility is called “modal spit” and it is the division of people’s transportation by car, public transport, walking and cycling. What can we learn from the numbers if it comes to transforming mobility and what could it mean when designing public space if we want to change it for the better?

We all know it; the old cities of Copenhagen and Amsterdam are not designed for cars. Walking and cycling are more in tune with the fine urban structure than cars. The cities are both very successful if it comes to banning cars. After decades of effective policy in building infrastructure for public transport, cycling and pedestrians and parking policy, these cities are more liveable, saver and people are healthier; due to their daily exercises.

Both cities want to be more sustainable. And it is necessary! Especially for Amsterdam because the city is used by so many people and cycle jams are a new phenomenon. There is a growing fight between cars and cycles and since last summer a public debate is ignited about how to tackle the problems that comes with the overcrowded city. The Amsterdam newspaper Parool had some interesting articles about it.

The question is if there is enough space for cyclists and if it is possible to change?

Let us first look to the numbers. For the source of these figures click here.
Modal split of Copenhagen: Walking 26%, Cycling 32%, Public transport 14% and Cars 26%.
Modal slit Amsterdam: Walking 28%, Cycling 31%, Public transport 15% and Cars 23%.

The Amsterdam city centre is proximally 800 ha; of which the public space for traffic is about 45 hectare. 25% of this space is assigned to pedestrians, 11% for cycling, 4% for tram lanes, 20% for cars and 40% for parking.

This does not match the modal spit numbers!

We all know cars take much more space than the cycles but the difference is striking. If the city wants to take the next step in transformation the modal split, I would like to propose to double the space for cycling. If change and a fair division of space is wanted and needed, the city will have to drastically redesign public space: 22 % for cycling and reducing the space for cars at the same time by 11%.

I think it can be done and WOW, it would be an in interesting exercise!

A relief for all cyclists!

Improving sustainable transport!

Making the city safer and cleaner!

I wonder what the division of space is in Copenhagen. It always feels more comfortable and easy to cycle trough the city of Copenhagen compared to Amsterdam.

Ronald van Warmerdam
Sr project manager Projectmanagement Bureau, city of Amsterdam / lecturer TuDelft / Coordinator TRANSFORM

https://twitter.com/rvwarmerdam