Liberec's Pilot City Activity: Statutory City of Liberec

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©WIKIPEDIA|VITVIT|CC BY-SA 4.0|2018|LIBEREC CITY HALL

Description of activities

The premise of the project is that the energy community is a way of activating local stakeholders in activities leading to the city’s climate neutrality. The pilot activities will mainly target decarbonisation in:

1) Energy domain: activities focused on technical, commercial, and legal aspects of the development of the energy community (new legislation in the Czech Republic, effectiveness planned as from 2024), i.e. mapping of stakeholders, mapping of technologies, both on the consumption and production side, and how to overcome the barriers to implement them, how to build the contractual relationships within the community, etc.;

2) Transport domain: activities aimed at introducing a strategy for the city’s charging infrastructure development (for passenger cars, public and freight transport).

In parallel, emphasis will be placed on raising awareness of carbon neutrality in the city through various communication instruments (online platform, workshops, communication strategies tailored to specific stakeholders, etc.).

The pilot activities aim to address several issues (current insufficiencies):

  • The small expansion of renewable energy sources,
  • The slow development of transport electrification (particularly battery vehicles: passenger, heavy as well as public transport),
  • The insufficient communication and cooperation among the stakeholders in the city,
  • The need for social innovation that contributes to behavioural change (new governance model),
  • The implementation of new legislation.

Objective

Guidelines to develop an energy community roadmap, launch of a communication platform to raise awareness and initiate cooperation in low emission transport and community energy topics.

Are the pilot activities building upon or part of a previous and/or existing activity?

The project builds upon previous and ongoing activities. Liberec is a member of the EU Mission 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030, and a signatory of the Covenant of Mayors. Pursuing climate neutrality is a part of city-strategic documents, such as: the main strategic plan The City of Liberec Development Strategy 2021+, SUMP, SECAP. Liberec has also taken part in the European Local Energy Assistance (buildings renovation and energy-savings measures). There is also a complementary project under the Horizon funding, i.e. the project under the Call ‘Research and Innovation actions to support the implementation of the Climate-neutral and Smart Cities Mission (Designing inclusive, safe, affordable and sustainable urban mobility).

Which emissions domains will the pilot activities address?

  • Consumption of electricity generated for buildings, facilities, and infrastructure

  • Consumption of non-electricity energy for thermal uses in buildings and facilities (e.g., heating, cooking, etc.)

  • All vehicles and transport (mobile energy) 

Systemic transformation – levers of change the pilot activities will exploit

  • Technology/infrastructure 

  • Governance and policy 

  • Social innovation 

  • Democracy/participation 

  • Finance & funding 

  • Learning and capabilities

Stakeholder types that you would like to engage in the pilot activities 

  • Academia  

  • Citizens

  • Public/private partnerships

  • Local NGO, associations

Transferable features of your pilot activities to a Twin City/ies 

How to create a stronger cooperation between the city and:

  • The academic sector (represented by the public university located in Liberec)
  • Local players
  • The business community in the development of the Energy Community
  • The city of Liberec will share its best practices in the Cities learning programme
  • Provide examples of how the city developed and implemented the interventions
  • What lessons the city has learned and what its plans are.
  • Commit to producing MEL reports providing lessons learnt from the monitoring of the interventions.

This answer is not exhaustive and simply an indicative one.

Components of the transferable features 

The following project potential outcomes and interventions may be relevant and transferable to other cities:

  • Lessons learned on how to actively involve a regional city in the development of a community energy plan.
  • Description of the structure of the communication platform for members of the Energy Community Liberec and the city.
  • Specification of priority topics of communication with different types of stakeholders.
  • Adaptation of teaching courses to the topics of community energy and creation of a platform to connect city and university activities.
  • Lessons on how to develop a roadmap for the electrification of urban mobility and in particular its infrastructure.

Per sector:

  • Energy: materialised in a manual on how to guide urban development in line with the development of the community energy & low emission strategy (providing a plan with the mapped background, capacities, needs of individual stakeholders and the technology portfolio).
  • Transport: the objective is to establish guidelines for the development of low-emission transport infrastructure. The development of this infrastructure will enable the scaling up of emission savings with the advent of low emission transport.

This answer is not exhaustive and simply an indicative one.

What does the city want to learn from Twin City/ies? 

Learn how to:

  • Approach all stakeholders, including citizens,
  • Obtain new knowledge and experience with funding such activities (financial innovation, how to attract private capital etc.),
  • Engage with city energy management in general. Develop community energy and low-emission transport infrastructure from scratch.

This answer is not exhaustive and simply an indicative one.