Solvåg, Piteå, Björn Ekelund
30 August 2018
Small scale electricity producers in cities
Cities are the biggest polluters and must transform their energy systems. Researchers at Luleå University of Technology will now investigate how to support "prosumers", people who produce and consume energy, by using design thinking and participatory strategies. Porsön district in Luleå will become a testbed for such methods.
Community workshops, design thinking, and socio-economic models will be used too find the best ways to support prosumers and the city to think beyond the box. This means that energy ahestetics will be come an important factor to drive the energy transition of cities. It will lead to reimagine the most common urban infrastructures (sidewalks, streets, housing, etc.).
"It will be interesting to work with the people living and working in Porsön to co-create togheter news ways of imagining and designing the city", Agatino Rizzo and Kristina Ek, both Associate Professors at Luleå University of Technology.
The Solar Urban Districts project will focus on solar panels and the built environment.
"Based on our previous research, we think that a district/city approach is the most useful to develop, test, and evaluate a design-driven, democratic method to transform cities into energy-integrated environments," says Agatino Rizzo.
The Sustainable Development Goals, set by the United Nations and ratified by the countries including Sweden, call for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
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