Lyon Smart Community

Location: Lyon, Rhône Alpes (France)

Population:  513,275 [city area].

Climate: Humid Subtropical

Duration: 2011 – 2017

Sector: Cross-cutting

Funding sources: Public – private

City networks: N/A

Savings: The buildings (under the Hikari project) consumed 50-60 % less energy than a regular building, conforming to the RT2012 standard.

Solutions: A smart city implementation at La Confluence.

Multiple benefits: Positive energy buildings, innovative mobility, energy and data management.

Lyon smart community is a Franco-Japanese cooperation project between the Métropole de Lyon and NEDO (New Energy and industrial technology Development Organisation) carried out in the La Confluence district between 2011 and 2017. Toshiba was chosen to implement the sustainable energy management technologies involved.

Objective – Create a unique project in Europe, demonstrating that 1 million square meters could be built without increasing energy consumption. In this context, the goal was to test in Lyon Confluence innovative tools and achievements to improve the well-being of residents and economic dynamism, within the framework of the smart city.

Solutions – The project, which includes homes, buildings and transport in an area of roughly 150 hectares, combines energy efficiency, multi-modal solutions and the fostering of individual responsibilities with the support of ICT enabled data and insight management systems. Based on the development of efficient ICT systems and data management strategies on both a micro and a macro level, the solution improves urban mobility and the built environment by creating better conditions for energy savings and CO2 emission reductions.

The Lyon Smart Community project includes four demonstration projects:  1) A group of positive-energy buildings (Hikari project); 2) a fleet of electric vehicles for a car-sharing scheme, connected to a photovoltaic energy station (Sunmoov project); 3) an eco-renovation project: installing energy monitoring systems in homes (Consotab project); 4) the setting up a Community Energy Management System (CMS) to monitor energy use by the demonstration project as a whole. CMS allows assessing the real effectiveness of each project [source].

Funding – € 50 Mln funded by NEDO, and direct and indirect investments by public and private partners [source].

Innovation –The project was a pioneer in the design of innovative solutions. It foreshadows new ways of living, of being move and manage its energy, across the district. The “community” is directly associated with achieving a goal of collective environmental and social.

Moreover, CMS, the global management and control system for energy data from the Lyon Smart Community, allowed for the first time in Europe, the collection of all energy data to achieve zero carbon emissions.

Success factors – State-of-the-art technologies and a large number of partners have made Lyon Smart Community a unique project. National, European and International collaboration has brought together public and private actors: start-ups, major groups (Toshiba, Transdev, etc), researchers, local authorities and various structures (the SPL Lyon Confluence, the Hespul association, etc.). Besides, the Smart demonstration Community was completed thanks to a solid technical exchange partnership between France and Japan as well as the cooperation of the Métropole de Lyon.

Significant outcomes:

After 5 years of experimentation, the different projects have achieved the following positive results:

1. Hikari project:

• The buildings consume 50-60 %less energy than a building conforming to the RT2012standard, thanks to its bioclimatic concept;
• 67 %of the electricity used and 87 %of the heat needs come from renewable energies (solar, geothermal, );
• Successfully managing the energy produced, stored, saved and consumed.

2. Sunmoov project:

• On the recharging stations, 82% of the solar electricity was produced by photovoltaic panels.

3. Consotab project:

• Energy consumption went down 8% and up to 12% in winter.

4. CMS to manage the energy flows of the 3 projects:

• CMS of Lyon Smart Community made it possible to centralize, visualize and analyse the energy data of Hikari, Sunmoov and Consotab.
• It also took into account other local data (weather, air quality, etc.) to create dashboards useful in decision support.

Synergies with local policies:

• Territorial Climate and Energy Plan 2015 of Grand Lyon is a territorial sustainable development project whose main purpose is to combat climate change. It has two objectives: 1) To mitigate and reduce GHG emissions in 2020 by 20% compared to 2000 levels and 2) to adapt to climate change, by reducing the territory´s vulnerability to the impact of climate change.
• The Grand Lyon Energy Master Plan is a tool for territorial planning of the energy transition. It aims to build a metropolitan energy strategy and integrate energy into the definition of public policies and the resulting projects.
• Regional programme Rhône Alpes 2014-2020 ” aims to boost economic growth in the region) and contributes to achieving the Europe 2020 targets for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, to reduce GHG emissions by 3 million teq CO2 and increase energy efficiency in housing for the benefit of 6120 households.

Political alignment:

• National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP), which sets a final consumption target of 131 Mtoe in 2020. The energy savings measures are expected to save 20.5 Mtoe in 2020 [source].
• The Energy Transition Act 2015 introduced a provision aimed at halving final energy consumption between 2012 and 2050. As part of the Transition Act, building renovations will be mandatory by 2030 for the least efficient dwellings (specific consumption over 330 kWh/m2). Governmental institutions will have to renew half of their vehicle fleet with low-emission cars [source].
• The Energy Policy Framework Law 2005 defines the objectives and orientations of France´s energy policy. It contains objectives to increase the share of renewable electricity in the national energy mix, to diversify energy sources and increase energy efficiency.
• The draft integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) of France aims at decarbonising the energy system and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, as well as achieving a reduction of 36% on GHG emissions compared to 2005 levels.

Marketability:

Building on the lessons learned from the Lyon Smart Community, new projects are taking over to continue to experiment with the smart city in the Lyon metropolitan area. Among them, some major programs as Smarter Together, Next-Buildings and Eureka Confluence.