Project

With 80% of European citizens living in urban areas, cities have a crucial role to play in the transition towards a low-carbon economy. Faced with the challenge of ensuring the quality of life of their citizens while becoming more energy efficient, cities must look at the system level and develop integrated urban development strategies that will make them both sustainable and better places to live.  

The SINFONIA project is a five-year initiative to deploy large-scale, integrated and scalable energy solutions in mid-sized European cities. At the heart of the initiative is a unique cooperation between the cities of Bolzano and Innsbruck, working hand in hand to achieve 40 to 50% primary energy savings and increase the share of renewables by 20% in two pioneer districts. This will be done through an integrated set of measures combining the retrofitting of more than 100,000m² of living surface, optimisation of the electricity grid, and solutions for district heating and cooling. 

Bridging the gap between demonstration and large-scale replication

A large part of the project is therefore dedicated to the transferability and scalability of the solutions deployed in the two pioneer districts. To achieve this, SINFONIA will define a limited set of district typologies and corresponding refurbishment models, enabling cities to easily assess their needs and efficiently define their long-term refurbishment strategies. To further ensure their scalability and transferability, these models and typologies will be tested and validated with all stakeholders involved – public and private, from citizen to energy regulators – not only in Innsbruck and Bolzano, but also in five ‘early adopter’ cities which are actively participating in SINFONIA: Pafos (CY), Rosenheim (DE), Seville (ES), La Rochelle (FR)and Borås (SE).