In Wörgl, Tyrol, the housing project Südtiroler Siedlung of NEUE HEIMAT TIROL (NHT) will take shape over the next few years as a flagship development with an outstanding quality of life, and as a model for other regions. The city of Wörgl is working together with commercial partners and researchers1 to create a large-scale demonstration project for a smart city district. Key influences are the vision of energy autonomy and the roadmap that Wörgl devised as part of the 2012 exploratory study by the Climate and Energy Fund.
Intelligent combination of innovative technologies
Construction will take place in five phases, with new buildings designed to meet passive-house standards, providing a total of 360 homes across the total site area of 27,000 m2. The innovative concept for this smart district uses a combination of tried and tested technologies and systems which will be intelligently linked, adapted and demonstrated in the course of the project.
These include:
> district heating networks using industrial waste heat, including heat storage systems
> using photovoltaic energy and storing it using environmentally-friendly saltwater storage systems to increase the use of locally generated energy
> networked use of smart ICT systems for residents
> smart vehicle charging and mobility management
In addition, sustainable business models and innovative citizen participation models are being developed with the aim of optimising the cost-benefit ratio for residents and business operators.
A vision becomes reality
In November 2019 the first building phase of NEUE HEIMAT TIROL was ready to be handed over to its residents. The buildings were constructed to meet passive-house standards (as defined by PHPP), with controlled ventilation and highly efficient thermal insulation made from wood fibres. In cooperation with the Wörgl municipal utilities a PV system on the building roofs, with an output of 29 kWpeak, is combined with an outstandingly reliable, environmentally friendly and durable saltwater battery storage system (40 kWh storage capacity). This acts as a daytime storage buffer for the PV power and allows maximum use of locally produced energy. In addition a heat pump – powered exclusively by renewable energy – is used to capture the waste heat from the buildings’ plant rooms. This means that distribution losses from the central heating and hot water systems can be minimised.
Using innovative control technology from MEOenergy, combined with the NHT’s own building control systems, it is also possible to incorporate weather forecasting data into the system’s operating parameters. As part of the research project the effects of this innovation are being measured and the data collected. Since buildings constructed to passive-house standards need very little heating energy (between 13 and 15 kWh/m²a), the feasibility will be tested of supplying this with district heating return flows from Wörgl municipal utilities. As a side-effect this would also improve the efficiency of the urban district heating network.
Sustainable mobility concept
The Südtiroler Siedlung housing development is designed as a car-free zone with restrictions on parking private motorised vehicles. The neighbourhood has excellent public transport links, with the city bus service and a train station close by. The roads within the development are designated as social interaction zones; private vehicles can only be parked in a central underground garage. The Wörgl municipal utilities department has already installed two e-charging stations on the site for e-vehicles. Intelligent charging management, integrated into the development’s energy management system and combined with the battery storage system, means vehicles can be charged using locally captured PV power. In order to reduce the number of vehicles in the development even further, a car-sharing system is also being set up, using e-vehicles.
smartcities.at/stadt-projekte/smart-cities/#suedtiroler-siedlung-smart-city-woergl
1 PROJECT PARTNERS: Stadtwerke Wörgl (consortium leader), BlueSky Energy GmbH, Meo Smart Home Energy GmbH, Neue Heimat Tirol, University of Innsbruck – Department of Structural Engineering and Material Sciences and Department of Infrastructure Engineering. This project is part of the “Smart Cities Demo” programme of the Climate and Energy Fund.
The building was awarded GOLD certification under the federal government’s “klimaaktiv” initiative.
