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Middelfart

Location: Foens, Denmark

Participants: Middelfart Kommune, University of Southern Denmark

The driving force, main actors, in the Danish case are the citizens in the village of Foens. The village has approximately 200 inhabitants and the citizens were already interested in entering the energy market. Their efforts in green transition have led to several awards. The village has an impressive track record and has been appointed as a major success-story by the Danish Ecological Council.

Their absolute main achievement has been the creation of their own district heating system, the newest and probably smallest in Denmark. It gathers worldwide attention and attracts visitors from all over the world. The process in the success has been a co-creating method with public authorities, private companies and research and education centres as partners. The model works with the citizens in a home-made “village-style”.

This way of working has been the backbone for further development and mapping of the progress in the EMPOWER2.0 pilot. The main objectives for this pilot during the EMPOWER project have been: • to Instal 2 heat pumps (with the capacity of 88KW each) as green sources of power generation that can provide minimum 50% of the needed energy by the district heating system in the cold season. For most of the other seasons, the heat pumps can provide 100% of the power. • Analysing the energy efficiency of 10 sample houses and giving them energy label using modelling and collection of energy data in each house. With this knowledge we are able to understand each buildings range of energy flexibility, hence use forecasting models to optimize energy consumption (and constructing a business case). This prediction of the consumption can be used in the third objective. • Providing a model and algorithm that can schedule switching between the heat pump and the woodchips boilers in order to minimize the cost.

From these objectives, the first objective is 100% and the second objective is 90% accomplished. Third objective is still in progress.

Moreover, we are working to map and understand the process that actually has EMPOWERed the citizens achievements until now (making their own district heating system, retrofitting houses etc.).

 Future Outcomes:

  1. The climate vision has come better to life
  2. The heating price will be cheaper for citizens
  3. The comfort and liveability will increase because the citizens work with “showelling biomass” will decrease
  4. The pride of living in a sustainable village will increase
  5. The data modelling will support development of an intelligent energy system that is relevant for green transition in general.
  6. Data collection system can be used as a living lab for research purposes (already has been used in SDU).