These days I really have sympathy with my fellow colleagues in other parts of Europe. In Umeå we sometimes complain that “we are so far away from everything”, but this year we should be very happy that we actually are. As it took much longer before the Corona situation reached us, we had time to prepare and prevent. And in fact, in our region, we have been much less affected than most others even within the country. We were able to continue with the implementation of our Smart solutions as if everything was normal. Now we are in the monitoring phase and planning for the next developments of our innovation area and are looking ahead.
Corona is of course high on the agenda for us as well. I have even started to make a small note (just to myself) on how many meetings or discussions that we have, that does not mention or refer to the pandemic situation and how to prevent or ease the effects. My conclusion so far, is that of course there are meetings when we do not talk about it at all, but there has not yet been one single day so far without us talking about Covid-19 in one way or the other. At the same time, weeks can pass by without us discussing, or even mentioning how to stop or prevent climate change…
Carina Aschan, Coordinator for RUGGEDISED in Umeå
PROJECT TIMING:
Month 48 / 60
BIGGEST SUCCESS TO DATE
All our Smart Solutions have been implemented.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE
Engaging workshops and public participation without physical meetings
Did you know?
The RUGGEDISED bus station in Umeå has been nominated for a prestigious design-prize
The results of Umeå’s efforts keep pouring in. A few examples are shared below from Jörgen Carlsson, head of RUGGGEDISED actions at Umeå Energi AB.
We have concluded the implementation of the Business Model Innovations with a Letter of Understanding for the findings and suggested steps of implementation. The results are promising enough, so we now work on designing the software Proof of Concept along with setting up the components of the prizing model in the market place. We are also looking into the hardware set-up prerequisites of said marketplace. We are likely to conclude these specific steps in late 2020-early 21.
In this solution (U2A) we use the buildings construction as accumulators for heat, and are thereby able to smooth out the peak loads. We have now competed the test phase of this action and made some astonishing findings:
This solution (U4A) is about raising tenant awareness of their climate impact by energy use, and by lustful nudging promote behavioural changes in the preferable direction; lowered climate impact. Unfortunately this action has been marred with delays due to various reasons. The action is however on track again now, and we will test the solution together with our partner - a Condominium association of HSB - during the coming heating season.