The Nordic Embassies in Dublin and the All Ireland Smart Cities Forum have today launched the first-ever joint Nordic-Irish partnership for smart and sustainable city development.
The partnership will see representatives from the four Nordic countries of Norway, Finland, Denmark and Sweden form a new alliance that builds on an existing EUR 6 Billion Irish-Nordic trading relationship for goods, while trade in services continues to grow strongly.
Now, looking to the smart economy, the new partnership will help to “match-make” Nordic and Irish companies open to collaboration on new, smart and sustainable solutions to address some of the major challenges facing towns and cities today. Ireland’s reputation as a leading hub for technology and R&D complements the Nordic countries’ longstanding experience and investment in smart city solutions.
The partnership on Smart Cities kicks off in earnest in Dublin today with Ireland’s first Smart City event in the Nordic Green format, where representatives from the four Nordic countries, Ireland and Northern Ireland will present cutting edge ideas and solutions on a range of Smart City issues. In total, some 30 companies will attend or participate in today’s workshop and among the companies from the island of Ireland represented are ESB Networks, Irish Water, GoCar and B9 Energy. The aim is for the companies in attendance to find partners during the workshop – to develop Smart City solutions together for the future.
Among the areas for discussion at the event are three specific challenges where the Nordic experience has excelled:
- Smart and Sustainable Mobility
Sweden’s ElectriCity initiative in the City of Gothenburg, where Volvo is a main partner, is an innovative partnership between city, region, private sector and academia for sustainable and electrified travel and transport. The partnership saw two electric bus lines introduced to the city’s transport network in 2015, enabling the city to reduce its emissions and noise levels. In 2018 alone, one of the electric bus lines carried more than one million passengers.
Norway’s decision in the early 1990s to promote switching to zero-emission vehicles through a series of sustained tax and policy incentives means every second new car purchased was electric by the end of 2018. Norway is the European leader for electric vehicles and has the world’s largest plug-in segment market share of new car sales in 2018 at 49%, with Zaptec the market leader in Norway in providing charging installations for housing co-operatives and companies.
- Smart Energy and Smart Grids
Finland’s Wärtsilä has shown how gas can be used as a clean fuel and back-up power source for data centres, providing stable and continuous connectivity, creating a new revenue stream for data centre operators who can sell excess electricity to the grid while reducing their own electricity procurement costs and carbon footprint in turn.
- Smart Water Management
Denmark’s LEAKman Project demonstrates how public-private partnership can lead to smarter solutions. The project is a co-operation between nine Danish partners, including one of the world’s leading pump manufacturers Grundfos. LEAKman has led to an integrated data and modelling approach that identifies urban water loss, targets weaknesses in the existing public water pipeline system, resulting in water loss being reduced to just 4-6%.
Today’s event further builds on the first Nordic Green seminar hosted by the Nordic Embassies in Ireland, who came together in 2017 to showcase the Nordic experience of transitioning to more sustainable energy solutions.
“Our vision is to develop a Nordic – Irish Green”, said the Ambassador of Norway, Else Berit Eikeland. “We hope to develop a long-term partnership, to find more sustainable solutions for our common challenges.”
Brian Donnellan, Vice-President Engagement & Innovation, Maynooth University, and Chair of All Ireland Smart Cities Forum said: “The Nordic-Irish Partnership for Smart Cities further strengthens long-standing relations between the Nordic countries and the island of Ireland. In the space of smart cities, there is significant potential to collaborate – across industry, academia and policy – in harnessing both the potential of the technology and the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of our cities and towns.”
It is anticipated that the new partnership will result in long-term relationships being forged between Irish and Nordic companies working specifically on a range of smart city solutions.
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Quelle/Source: Irish Tech News, 14.05.2019
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