SmallWind4Cities

Smart Cities Demo – Boosting Urban Innovation 2020 - eine Förderaktion des Klima- und Energiefonds

BluePower GmbH (BLUE)

im-plan-tat Raumplanungs GmbH & Co KG (IMP)

Sonnenplatz Großschönau (SPG)

Zero C energy GmbH (ZERO)

Ingenieurleistungen für KFZ-Technik und Stahlbau Hans Banzhaf (BANZ)

Tulln Energie (TUE)

Small wind turbines are an interesting option for a resilient and sustainable energy supply in large and small cities based on local energy supply. Besides PV the represent one of the few options to harvest energy in populated areas. Despite small wind turbines have made significant progress over the last years and become a reliable and relevant technology, they often go under the radar in Austria and see their advantages disregarded. Reasons for small wind turbines being unable to establish on the market are the lack of clear guidelines during permission processes as well as the still persistent complexity in site assessment.

In order to change this situation, the project aims at the following goals: 

(A) Raise awareness and acceptance for the technology and clear reservation towards the technology by: 

• Recording and mapping the awareness and acceptance towards small wind turbines as well as its drivers and obstructions in the German-speaking area. 
• Increasing the awareness for small wind energy by giving communities the opportunity to experience a small wind turbine (SWT) live and hands on. 
• Inclusion of communities by giving them the opportunity to make active contributions in the project as well as regarding the future implementation of the technology 

(B) Simplifying the process of planning and administration small wind turbines in urban and populated areas by the following actions: 

• Development of a simple method for site assessment in populated and obstructed areas 
• Development of transdisciplinary criteria for site assessment and selection 
• Elaborate best practice compilation for permission of SWT Based on the acquired findings on social, administrative (permission) and planning (site assessment) aspects, transdisciplinary and holistic methods are developed.

The project primary addresses the following two fields of action: 

(A) Urban ecology and climate adaptation: Small wind energy is one of the few technologies that allows for a sustainable harvesting of natural resources within urban areas and thus can give a contribution to resilient urban structures. The planning of such projects however needs to happen in a socially compliant fashion – especially with increasing spread of the technology. In order to secure this, objective transdisciplinary criteria are required. This project aims at raising those criteria. 

(B) Energy supply and usage: When it comes to resilient urban energy supply which not only relies on the surrounding areas, it appears to be beneficial fo force the deployment of small wind technology. This project aims at implementing this by creating simple planning methods and including communities and policy makers

Contributions to the goals of the program:

• Bring research results onto the field: During various previous research projects the turbines that are used in this project have been refined and brought to marketability. This project gives them the opportunity to be tested in the built environment. 
• Creating room for experimentation in the urban environment: There are only very few cities in Europe have implemented SWT in populated areas. This project establishes a room for experimentation for SWT in an urban environment embedding visitors by actively giving the information through info screens and hand on experiments 
• Create a municipal added value and climatic impact: Currently there are only very few options besides PV for municipalities and cities to harvest climate-neutral energy in populated or urban areas. Small wind energy offers a large potential in this regard which this project aims to unlock in order to give municipalities an additional option.