Future-Proofing Energy Systems for Net-Zero: Milan

Overview

A joined up approach can certainly help when planning  integrated, complex electricity systems with distributed generation and multiple locations of high electricity demand. While city governments, utilities, grid operators or electricity consumers each can play leading roles in energy demand management initiatives, a coordinated effort that brings all key stakeholders together is often most effective.

The EU-funded $32 million (€28 million) Sharing Cities project aims to develop scalable digital and collaborative solutions for cities by fostering collaboration between cities and industry. The initiative involved concept demonstrations in Milan, London, and Lisbon.

Milan’s Sharing Cities Project developed a Sustainable Energy Management System for the Porta Romana district in 2015, including smart grids, internet-connected street lighting and 60 electric vehicle chargers. The system collects near real-time data from the electricity distribution grid and can aid long-term grid development plans.

Milan has also developed a mobility services platform, facilitating car sharing and EV charging as part of the European Sharing Cities project. The Porta Romana pilot and the mobility services web platform will help future-proof Milan’s energy system. The project used co-design workshops for collaborative decision making, to ensure that different stakeholders needs were considered.

Impact

The sustainable energy management system pilot allowed Milan to plan investments in the local energy system in line with long-term decarbonization targets. As a larger share of the transportation fleet gets electrified, ensuring that local electricity networks can cope with higher demand is critical. The city of 1.4 million residents plans to fully electrify its bus fleet by 2030 and use smart demand-management technologies to optimize bus charging.

Emissions: The Milan Sharing Cities project saved almost 500 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2019 and city seeks to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2030. The city’s greenhouse gas emissions totaled around 5.5 million metric tons Co2e in 2020 (Scope 1 and 2).

Jobs: Investment in the Milan Sharing Cities project has totaled almost $300 million from 2015 to July 2021, including public and private investment. The pilot included energy efficiency retrofits of 20 buildings, expected to have added around 100 full-time jobs. Support for smart city innovation also has a positive impact on employment.

Health and social: The pilot tested technological solutions for retrofits of a social housing building. This reduced energy poverty and the increased the comfort for low-income citizens living there.

Opportunity

Power-management systems enable the local grid to support a faster electrification of heating and transport, which typically are powered by fossil fuels. The utilization of electricity produced by distributed sources like rooftop solar can also be improved by using power management.

To prepare for a low-carbon future, local electricity grids need to plan and adopt smart grid management technologies with increased flexibility. By shifting electricity demand to a different time of the day, more solar generation can be utilized in the middle of the day, and the existing physical grid infrastructure can support increased electric heating and vehicle charging. Cities can help to unlock this needed flexibility at the distribution level.

Smart grid management systems can collect data on electricity demand and generation. This creates an opportunity to share data and enables both public and private actors to better plan their energy investments. Milan’s interoperability plan and open data portal has enabled more transparent planning and management of the city’s electricity needs.

Source: BloombergNEF. Note: Hourly load profile based on the U.K. and Germany.

Source

Source: BloombergNEF and C40 report, Building on Cities to Deliver a Green and Just Recovery

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