On 22 November 2018, Jesper Tonnen, the project coordinator in Groningen (Netherlands) for the new Horizon 2020 funded smart cities project “MAKING-CITY” and his colleagues visited Lighthouse City Hamburg. The City of Hamburg represented by Christoph Lindemann (project leader for the Hamburg Demonstration), Dr Nicole Schubbe (Agency for Geoformation and Surveying), Sabine Hilfert and Nadine Neumann (both Senate Chancellery, City of Hamburg) presented the objectives of mySMARTLife.
The two cities had a fruitful exchange on project management tool kits, the two projects and the possible collaboration of the two cities. Groningen will become a new European Lighthouse City. In “MAKING-CITY” project, it will focus on communal energy and it is part of the city´s ambition to become a zero-emission city by 2035.
The smart cities project “MAKING-CITY is developing a set of solutions based on the positive energy district approach, i.e. when urban districts produce more energy than they consume. Thus, cities shall become more energy self-sustainable, reduce greenhouse emissions, fight air pollution and increase the quality of urban life at the same time. The proposed innovations, such as positive energy buildings, renewable energy systems, energy sharing, electric mobility and smart IT tools, will be developed and demonstrated in the Lighthouse Cities of Groningen (Netherlands) and Oulu (Finland). In a second step, the solutions will be adapted to specific conditions of the Follower Cities of Bassano del Grappa (Italy), Kadiköy (Turkey), León (Spain), Lublin (Poland), Poprad (Slovakia) and Vidin (Bulgaria).
