Last week I was been lucky to participate in a site visit to the Positive Energy District developed by Atelier in Amsterdam. It consists of a set of urban developments in a formerly-industrial area North of the city. Now halfway or almost at the end of their construction process.
As we are approaching the end of the project, the key questions were made: What comes next? Was it worth it? etc.
Over the years, typical answers showed the reluctancy of stakeholders to scale-up. Maybe insulation levels seemed oversized…some would question the stability of HVAC performance over time…PV is too costly…boilers/natural gas are simply too versatile and can not be beaten…etc.
But for the first time I noticed a clear change in the mindset. Over the last years, it is clear that PV is a profitable technology, our NZEB approach is now mandatory, heat pumps are everywhere, etc.
In the meeting (still within a research context), everybody was clearly convinced on the need to scale-up in the integration of such technologies. The focus was no longer on how to find an excuses, but on how to get the key takeovers from ATELIER, make improvements and deploy these at scale.
The key learnings: The technologies work fine and are backed-up with measurements.
What comes next: Systems need to be simplified, standardized and deployed in larger numbers. So that deployment costs are reduced, and trust is built among the end-users.
It may take some time for all this. There is a need to rethink some relationships among stakeholders. Etc.
But it is now clear, that this is the right path.
Bonus: Some photos of the buildings & technical systems.
