Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IRIS (Integrated and Replicable Solutions for Co-Creation in Sustainable Cities)

Teaser

The IRIS project supports the Lighthouse cities of Utrecht (NL), Göteborg (SE) and Nice Côte d’Azur (FR) and their Follower cities Vaasa (FI), Alexandroupolis (GR), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (ES), and Focsani (RO) to address their urgent need to deliver energy and mobility...

Summary

The IRIS project supports the Lighthouse cities of Utrecht (NL), Göteborg (SE) and Nice Côte d’Azur (FR) and their Follower cities Vaasa (FI), Alexandroupolis (GR), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (ES), and Focsani (RO) to address their urgent need to deliver energy and mobility services in their cities that are cheaper, better accessible, reliable, and that contribute to a better and more sustainable urban quality of life. By demonstrating smart solutions that integrate energy, mobility and ICT, rooted in a City Innovation Platform, IRIS quantifies their value, and connects interests of many different stakeholders in innovative business models, allowing for upscale and replication of integrated solutions for sustainable cities across Europe and world-wide.

The overall concept of IRIS is the Transition Strategy comprising five (5) Tracks that together provide a universal yet versatile framework to address both common and district specific challenges. Within these five tracks, IRIS envisions to demonstrate a set of integrated solutions built on top of both mature and innovative technologies. The integrated solutions are defined on the basis of a common-shared know-how interchange among the lighthouse and followers cities, and planning of replication from the early beginning of the project. Track 1, 2 and 3 enhance energy efficiency and utilize grid flexibility by balancing supply and demand dynamically and by 2nd life battery and V2G storage, to allow increase of renewable energy production and roll-out of e-cars and e-buses. Track 4 supports this by data sharing, a common architecture, use of standards, and governance practices accelerating innovation, standardisation and implementation of affordable smart applications. Track 5 integrates interdisciplinary citizen engagement and co-creation in Tracks 1 to 4, connecting the needs of end-users with those of other stakeholders, in further support of innovative business models.

The expected impacts of IRIS are an open innovation ecosystem motivating citizens to act as prosumers; more effective urban planning and governance of integrated solutions; exploitation of validated innovative business models based on multi-stakeholder collaboration; more stable, secure and affordable energy and mobility services for citizens, with improved air quality.

Work performed

The work performed in M1 to M12 of the IRIS project focused on the successful inception of the work and teams, the planning of the demonstration measures in the Lighthouse City Demonstration Sites and the horizontal work packages focussing on supporting actions. In general, the work in the first twelve months of the project has been carried according to the Description of Action. All project milestones have been achieved in time. Twenty nine deliverables have been delivered according to expectations and document quality, with a small delay in submission for some deliverables and a significant delay for one deliverable. All cases of delay have been checked with the Project Officer and will not result in any impact to the overall project workflow. One deliverable has been postponed to the next reporting period. No significant risks impacting the project performance have materialised in the first twelve months. In the following sections a short summary of the work achieved in each of the IRIS work packages is described.
- Work package 1 “Transition Strategy” has started collaboration among the Lighthouse Cities and has established a baseline of collaboration for the project. Seven deliverables on the user, business and technical requirements of the integrated solutions in all transition tracks and KPIs for monitoring and evaluation, and the transition strategy and commissioning plan for future referencing has been produced.
- Work package 2 “EU wide cooperation with ongoing projects, initiatives and communities” has embarked and IRIS is now integrated in the SCC Board of Coordinators network of ongoing projects and the Smart Cities Information System. Activities towards standardization and interoperability have commenced.
- Work package 3 “Development of Bankable Business Models and Exploitation Activities” has seen preparatory activities in line with the project plan and timeline.
- Work package 4 “City Innovation Platform” has started with the inventory of IT baselines in the Lighthouse Cities and establishment of the IT reference architecture based on stakeholder needs and the reference IT architecture based on state-of-the-art in Urban Data Platforms.
- Work package 5 “Utrecht Lighthouse City Demonstration activities” has established all coordination and governance procedures in the local partner ecosystem and has planned the activities for the demonstration of the measures in each of the five transition tracks.
- Work package 6 “Nice Lighthouse City Demonstration activities” has established all coordination and governance procedures in the local partner ecosystem and has planned the activities for the demonstration of the measures in each of the five transition tracks.
- Work package 7 “Gothenburg Lighthouse City Demonstration activities” has established all coordination and governance procedures in the local partner ecosystem and has planned the activities for the demonstration of the measures in each of the five transition tracks.
- Work package 8 “Replication by Lighthouse regions, Follower cities, European market uptake” originally scheduled for starting in M25 has already started in order to create link with ongoing work packages and securing the output for the replication toolbox and roadmap.
- Work package 9 “Monitoring and evaluation” has established a task plan have provided in collaboration with the Lighthouse cities the selection and specification of the KPI selection and monitoring and evaluation framework.
- Work package 10 “Communication and Dissemination” has delivered the Communication and Dissemination Plan, containing the overall communication strategy, events overview and the establishment of three local news desks in each of the Lighthouse Cities.
- Work package 11 “Project management” has established all managerial and technical working teams, appropriate governance, internal and external communication structures, project progress monitoring procedur

Final results

No progress beyond the state of the art, expected results until the end of the project and potential impact can be reported for the first twelve months of the IRIS project.

Website & more info

More info: https://irissmartcities.eu/.