Five climate positive experiments kick-off in Kalasatama

Smart Kalasatama’s agile piloting programme´s third round attracted 34 climate positive candidates for pilots. For this spring we have chosen 5 individual pilots, which are experimenting on the areas of green solutions, electric cars, parking, solar power and reducing carbon footprint within households. The experiments are launched soon as possible during spring time in Helsinki Kalasatama region.

”We received lot of interesting and competent offers on this round. Many of them fitted perfectly to Smart Kalasatama’s strategy. The chosen experiments will nicely build on top of the existing smart solution in Kalasatama. All the candidates took seriously the climate aspect and citizen focus. ”, Says Smart Kalasatama’s programme director Veera Mustonen, Forum Virium Helsinki.

Between 2016–2017, Smart Kalasatama is buying 15–20 small pilots (1000–8000 euros) which bring innovative services to the use of citizens. Solutions have been developed and tested with the residents of Kalasatama area in Helsinki.

The five experiments for spring are following:

(1) Witrafi: Rentapark is a parking-space sharing-economy service that takes away the trouble of finding parking in the city by putting available spaces into productive use. A digital app allows drivers to book a space and pay for it in advance. There is no more driving around looking for a space. Traffic in the city is reduced by 30% and CO2 emissions by 10%.

(2) Parkkisähkö: The Smart Minigrid experiment upgrades electrical outlets for car block heaters into smart electric car charging stations remote-operated by smartphones. Smart Minigrid stations can use locally generated solar power.

(3) The Finnish startup Elwedo conducts an experiment based on the solar-power generation technology installed in Kalasatama residential buildings. Elwedo’s solution allows buildings to feed their excessive solar power to the grid and distributes the revenue among the residents.

(4) Innogreen: Outdoor green walls are used to control storm water and to increase biodiversity while providing greenness to urban blocks.

(5) The Natural Step Helsinki creates climate smart practices and incentives by combining real-time carbon footprint data, everyday choices and sharing economy opportunities.

All the candidates were assessed by council of experts, which consisted mainly of Smart&Clean foundation members, Solved Co. and Forum Virium representatives.

Exceptional collaboration

The ongoing third round of experiments will be implemented together with Smart&Clean project. Which aims to make Helsinki region the best platform for testing of Smart and Clean solutions. In the project the municipality, citizens, companies and research facilities work together to progress that goal.

Active resident participation is key to the success of the Smart Kalasatama development. So far 800 of the district’s 3,000 current residents have joined the experiments, as well as launching their own initiatives including landscaped construction sites. Kalasatama is projected to house 25,000 residents and to provide 10,000 jobs by 2030. The smart urban lifestyle development in the district is based on the new construction and a dense urban structure.

“This exceptional cooperation in Helsinki region creates one of the best platforms for testing smart and clean products and services. The agile piloting in Kalasatama accelerates Smart City innovation by procuring prototypes to real city environments. It would be ideal that the new solutions cause significant changes and create new businesses. All changes made in the Helsinki region will work as a reference point for all Finnish companies.”  Tiina Kähö, CO, Smart & Clean foundation

Smart Kalasatama is steered by Forum Virium Helsinki, a non-profit company that develops digital services for consumers in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The current experiments are conducted with the national Finnish Smart & Clean program, which seeks to develop the metropolitan area into a smart & clean testing ground.

For additional information, please contact: 

Kaisa Spilling
Forum Virium Helsinki
+358 40 7448831
kaisa.spilling(at)forumvirium.fi

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