Triangulum Impacts

The following summary gives an overview of Triangulum impacts at the level of the demonstrators (modules), across the project as a whole, and at city level. Currently, these are still draft impacts as we are still checking and calculating final values. Look up our final impact report when it becomes publicly available (Deliverable 2.6, to be published here), which will contain further updates and details.

Module Level Impacts

257 impact indicators have been finalised across the 26 modules being implemented in the Lighthouse Cities. The overall impacts in the Lighthouse cities are as follows:

For Manchester, energy trials in the final year carried out showing significant potential for reducing energy demand and lowering GHGs, 10,300 m² optimised building space in MCC for smart energy interventions with over 400 tCO₂e avoided GHGs, and a further 35 tCO₂e avoided GHGs as a result of PV energy generation. The purchase of 10 Triangulum procured EVs has reduced GHG emissions by 35 tCO₂e since 2016, and the overall impact of Triangulum has been to increase university share of EVs in vehicle fleets from 5% to 25%, with reduced GHG emissions of over 125 tCO₂e, 11kg NOx, and 70kg CO. 4 cargo bikes have made 4,493 journeys and travelled 6,697 km over a three year period and saved 820 kgCO₂e. The Manchester-I data platform hosts 9 real time data feeds and has 4 organisational users and 307 users that have downloaded data 427 times. Over 50 people have attended the Innovation Challenges hosted in 2018 and 2019.

For Eindhoven, in Strijp-S, biomass and Sanergy have replaced the old heating system and provided 100% renewable energy for heating. In 2019, 14% of all energy was generated by Sanergy. 14 EV charging stations have been implemented. The fiber-optic network has been expanded extensively with 350 home connections and 7,050 office connections. 40 sensors have been installed in Strijp-S. 28 SMEs from the iCity tender have been created, and €50m p.a. additional investment has been secured from partners since 2016. In Eckart-Vaartbroek, for social housing, 11,200 m² buildings have been renovated, reducing GHG emissions by 20%. The estimated energy bill reduction in 2019 was 55%. For the digital renovation platform of Woonconnect, 284 households (29%) used it, and 174 made a plan (scenario) for the renovation of their home. The Eindhoven open data platform has been viewed 96,000 times per month in 2019 and actively downloaded nearly 4,000 times per month.

For Stavanger, 56 smart gateways have been installed in residential buildings, and the Central Energy Plant (CEP) in Stavanger Commune has avoided a total of 500 tCO₂ p.a. which represents an 87.5% reduction in CO₂ emissions. 5 battery buses have been deployed by the bus operator in the city, avoiding 135 tCO₂ and 250 kg CO. A design competition for the Battery buses has been effective in engaging the public and school children in the project. The Cloud Data Platform has 6 internal users, hosts 4 datasets, and currently has 35 completed impact indicators. It has been used to deliver data analytics to improve efficiencies at the local bus operator.

Project level Impacts

• The main Energy sector impacts are reduced local energy use with more demand being met by renewable sources, reduced energy costs, and decreased greenhouse gas emissions. Across the project CO2 savings of more than 2000 tons have been achieved. Evidence from pilot work scaling potential benefits suggests that Triangulum interventions could reduce CO2 emissions across the Lighthouse Cities by 15% if they were rolled out across the city.

• The main Mobility sector impacts are improvements in efficiency, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂, NOx, CO). The main impacts across the city relate to the demonstration of different types of EVs in diverse settings (bus fleets, corporate and municipal fleets, SMEs) that has proven positive user experiences and stimulated further uptake in the Lighthouse cities.

• The main ICT sector impacts are increases in the availability of open data, data downloads, and improvements to fibre optic networks. The three data hubs have been used to deliver value to partners and in Eindhoven and Manchester will be continuing beyond the project end date through follow on funding.

City Level Impacts

1. Process learning

Triangulum has led the development of the ‘process learning’ concept, which describes how partner organisations have learnt to do things in new, smarter ways. These impacts are critical in the current context of zero-carbon cities and the need to accelerate transitions to sustainability. They describe a new ‘Triangulum’ way of governing cities.

• Partners tended to anticipate technical and economic benefits from being involved in the project but found that the main benefits were related to relationships and networks, capacity building, and process learning
• Early stage communication between project partners is essential to build relationships and encourage communication between sectors and across cities
• Encouraging as much face to face interaction as possible is key to sharing learning and experiences in a meaningful way
• Replication within cities is just as important and commendable as replication in other cities

Our survey and interviews with partners revealed three priority areas to enable smart transformation:

1. Ensure enabling policies and planning are in place that address the specific barriers identified through the demonstrators in order to allow demonstrations to be deployed at scale.
2. Integrate smart solutions into procurement and operating budgets to ensure they can be purchased at scale.
3. Facilitate and incentivise peer-to-peer learning among implementers across different organisations (building managers, energy engineers, fleet managers) as early as possible to promote data sharing and the adoption of shared (i.e. connected) solutions.

2. Leveraged investments

Spin-off initiatives have been a major city level impact of Triangulum, and reflect the development of a deeper form of partnership working within the Lighthouse Cities.