Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
1.3.3
Smart Energy in Europe: Comparing Sweden and Italy
The energy sector (Riva Sanseverino et al.
2014
) is certainly a strategic field for
countries and contemporaneous cities: all essential urban functions are indeed
supplied by energy.
Comparing southern and northern Europe cities is also a challenging task due to
the different contexts in which such cities have developed within the main
European frame.
The commitments taken by the EU in 2008 with the climate package 20-20-20
have motivated all European cities in setting specific actions to reach the objec-
tives of energy efficiency and low carbon energy production for the reduction of
GHG emissions.
Energy production and use therefore are the pillars of the above package of
directives. And the relevant specific objectives have been then turned into specific
national objectives. For Italy, as an example, as far as clean energy production is
concerned, the objective is to increase up to 17 % the coverage of the energy
required for consumption from renewable energy sources by 2020 (in 2005 it was
5.2 %).
Some European cities supported by serious national policies are strategically
directed towards a smart approach in the energy sector, considered of basic
importance for the urban development and for the political independence of the
entire state they belong to. The European Environment Agency (EEA) estimates
indeed that in some cases cities and towns account for just 69 % of national energy
use. This is achieved in a range of ways, from increased use of public mobility due
to larger population density to smaller city dwellings that require less heating and
lighting.
In Sweden
7
the national goals are clear to all operators since years. The pro-
duction of energy in Stockholm (Nylund et al.
2010
; Stockholm City Council
2010a
; Stockholm city Council
2010b
), as an example aims at self-sufficiency as
well as at reduced environmental impact using different means: from the well
known renewable sources installation to innovative systems allowing—especially
when building new districts—the re-cycling and re-use of waste, the biogas pro-
duction or even the use, as in the building Kungbrohuset (2010-2011) in Stock-
holm, of the heat produced by humans in the underground for air pre-heating.
The situation in the Swedish country besides is totally different from Italy from
many points of view. In Sweden, the project for the community comes first as well
as the carbon-free and politically independent vision of future scenarios that all
parties recognize to be a priority. In Italy, the individuals come first and before the
interests of the community. What indeed is amazing is that while Sweden struggles
since many years to attain the cited objectives of becoming a carbon free society
(district heating started in the seventies); in Italy this is a recently debated topic.
7
Interview to M. Ermann, Strategic Planner, Municipality of Stockholm (Riva Sanseverino et al.
2012
).
