TEXT Anders Edström Frejman

It can hardly have escaped anyone that the region of Öresund is growing exponentially. The whole region is in a positive spiral on many levels. On the Swedish side for example Lund and vicinity is benefited by the upcoming joint European research facility ESS, in combination with the all-Swedish facility MAX IV for synchrotron light research. The City tunnel in Malmö and a generally upgraded public transport within the frame of Region Skåne has a positive impact on establishments in general and population growth in particular.

 

Hyllie - developed in an unique way

In other wordsit is not surprising that there is a lot of construction going on in the region. Malmö is for example long since the object of a long-term city transformation where the ongoing giant project Västra Hamnen is but one example. Another example is the district of Hyllie in Malmö, that as late as in december of 2010 got a completely new-build station, which is a part of the City tunnel. But the point of interest is not that there is construction in Hyllie, but rather how the construction is done. When the city of Malmö plans and has the city district be developed it does it in a quite unique way.

 

Becoming th most climate-smart district

The city, E.ON and the municipal authority VA SYD signed in the beginning of 2011 what is called a climate contract, where they committed to turning Hyllie into the most climate-smart city district in the region and that its energy supply, at the latest in 2020, will consist of renewable or recycled energy entirely. But for that to be conceivable there is a need for constructors also to be involved in the process. The Housing and Urban Development Office's environmental strategist Tor Fossum explains that it from the municipality's side is communicated what vision one has regarding various parts of the city district and how that fits into the overall target objective everyone is to work towards.

- For example distribution of various tenure forms of apartments, where open common areas are to be placed or how sewage and energy systems are to be designed. Together with the municipality the constructors of the residential area along Hyllie Allé (1 700 apartments) have signed a so-called sustainability agreement. One could say that we from the municipality's side regulate a little more strictly than it is normally done.

 

"Right from the start"

One of the reasons for choosing this way of action is to avoid forcing oneself into a corner and the aim to achieve synergy effects - including with future technology unknown today.

- We want to get it right from start. We have already learned a lot from Västra Hamnen in seeing that a lot has happened on the technological side in the five last years alone. The market has matured and an increasing amount of smart solutions are now emerging more in full scale.

 

Testing smart solutions

Hyllie will also become somewhat of a larger-scale testing ground for the smart city of the future. Five constructors involved in Hyllie have for example received SEK 50 million in grants from the EU for a project called BuildSmart in which climate-smart solutions for ventilation, cooling and heating are to be tested. One of the visions in this is for the technology to visualize to the user how he himself can influence and route the energy consumption. Henrik Aspegren at the municipal authority VA SYD, that jointly manages water and sewage issues for a number of municipalities, explains that one in Hyllie tries to take a holistic approach on circular flow issues.

- We are speaking of energy balance within the district. It may sound banal, but it could for example manifest in that waste grinders are installed in all new-build properties in the district and that the waste via the local sewage plant is turned into biogas.

 

Minimizibg waste and maximizing recycling

It's thus about on one hand minimizing waste volumes and transportation needs and on the other hand recycling as much as possible.

- What we are trying to ensure is to look after that the solutions we produce don't lead to our becoming stuck in a dependance of waste as an energy issue. Else one easily slips into a position where combustion of domestic waste becomes the only solution. Domestic waste already is a commercial good, says Henrik Aspegren.

 

Energy solutions for the future

Mattias Örtenvik at E.ON - that supplies long-distance heating and electricity - is very expectant before the solutions all concerned will be testing together during the upcoming 10 to 15 years, when the city district with 9 000 residences and as many office workplaces build up. The background is that the energy supply of the future will look fundamentally different than today's and the lines between types of energy may become somewhat erased.

- We see that the renewable energy's share - not least wind generation - will increase in the grids. With this follows that the access of energy will vary over the day and consequently also the energy price. It's starting to get increasingly interesting to balance the use of electricity to the momentary access to the same, says Mattias Örtenvik.

Already today, the Danes use temporary surplus of their wind generation to heat up long-distance heating water with the help of electrical heaters. In that way one can draw down on combustion when this possibility exists.

- One could say that one links together various energy carriers in a tighter way. Another example is to take advantage of the thermic inertia of the concrete buildings' foundations to store surplus heat.

 

Smart grids sending energy in two directions

Mattias Örtenvik has been one of the leading lights behind the project Smart Grids where the energy company together with the City of Malmö and the Swedish Energy Agency produce intelligent solutions to route and store energy in the city district, together with Siemens as supplier of the underlying technology.

- What is unique about Hyllie is that we will build functionality into the system that makes it possible to optimize a whole city district from an energy perspective. A bit sloppily expressed the lines between customer and supplier will to a certain degree be erased through the energy being routable both ways, ends Mattias Örtenvik.