posted by Administration (new) on February, 21st 2012
The Amsterdam Smart City project is soon on its third year. During
this time, Amsterdam Smart City has initiated a large number of
innovative projects aiming to create a more sustainable and energy
efficient city.
Background:
Amsterdam Smart City started in 2009 as a collaboration project between
Amsterdam Innovation Motor and the grid operator Liander, in close
collaboration with the municipality of Amsterdam. Today, the project
involves over 70 different partners, and Amsterdam has become known as a
Smart City all over the world.
The idea of the Amsterdam Smart City is to go from a traditional
“knowledge-silo-thinking”, to a holistic information community, where
synergies are created through cooperation. Amsterdam Smart City stresses
the importance of the Smart City as an inclusive process, where the
strength lies in both the quality and quantity of the information
shared.
Projects:
In a Smart City perspective, Amsterdam is focusing on the challenge of
saving energy to reduce CO2 emissions. To do this, Amsterdam Smart City
has during its years introduced and tested a vast amount of energy
saving projects, divided into four areas: Sustainable Public Space,
Sustainable Mobility, Sustainable Living and Sustainable Working.
Sustainable Public Space include projects such as Smart School and
the Climate Street. Smart School is a project where children in primary
schools learn about saving energy, while their school competes with
other schools in energy efficiency. The Climate Street is another public
space project where a city street works as an incubator and testing
place for new climate friendly innovations and experiments.
An example of a Sustainable Mobility project is the Moet je Watt,
where special electrical battery chargers are relocated all over the
city. The special part of this project is that the charging stations,
apart from providing easy use services to electrical vehicles, also
prevent over charging, creating less energy waste.
Under the label Sustainable Living, one of Amsterdam Smart City´s
largest projects is found: Onze Energie. Onze Energie, Our Energy in
English, is a project aiming to supply 8.000 households with renewable
energy, mostly through windmills.
Sustainable Working is an area where Amsterdam Smart City has
initiated a lot of projects. In the densely populated Netherlands,
commuting is very common. To create a more sustainable environment,
Amsterdam needed to tackle the many daily trips made by car. A first
attempt was made by creating drop-in work places in areas where there
where often traffic jams, but due to many factors this was not
successful. Today, a very successful project with drop-in offices
within 5 minutes biking everywhere in Amsterdam is creating
flexibility and reducing car-traffic within the city.
What has been achieved?
It is clear that Amsterdam Smart has led to a vast amount of innovative
projects during its initial years. The projects are all in different
scales and phases, and it is difficult to see exactly what impact they
will have on long-term sustainability in the city. What is apparent is
that Amsterdam Smart City has functioned as a platform and an
inspiration for small and medium enterprises in the search for
sustainable options, and this alone makes for a good foundation for a
broad change in the way of thinking about city development.
Another thing that should not be belittled is that Amsterdam Smart
City has succeeded in branding Amsterdam as a forward thinking city with
smart ideas, and has made Amsterdam an international example in which
other cities can find inspiration.
The future of the project:
The challenge now for Amsterdam Smart City is to keep this momentum, and
to be able to scale up the projects to a scale where they can make a
true impact on the energy efficiency in Amsterdam. Spokespersons for
Amsterdam Smart City; Joost Brinkman and Ger Baron, stress the
importance of inclusiveness in a Smart City. To be an even smarter Smart
City, it is important to find ways in which the inhabitants for whom
the new technology is not available can participate and be included in
shaping the Smart City.
Facts about the city:
City: Amsterdam
Inhabitants: 780,559 in the city area, 2,289,762 in the
metropolitan area
Size: 219.4 square kilometers (city area)
Inhabitants per km2: 4,457 inhabitants
Houses per km2: 2,275
Bicycles: 881,000 (estimated)
Percentage of people who cycle daily: 58%
Parks: 40
Trams: 216
(source: sustainablecities.dk)
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