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A smart city needs more than just technology: Amsterdam’s Energy Atlas project
A smart city needs more than just technology: Amsterdam’s Energy Atlas project
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Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra1 and Wim van der Knaap2 1 Urban and Regional Planning Study Program, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Chapter Outline 6.1 Introduction 129 6.2 Background 130 6.2.1 Theoretical approach for Amsterdam Smart City 132 6.2.2 Organization of Amsterdam Smart City 135
6.3 Research methodology: case study 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5 6.3.6 6.3.7 6.3.8 6.3.9
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Scope 136 Integration 137 Organization 138 Timescale 140 Cost 140 Quality 141 Risks 141 Procurement 142 Discussion 142
6.4 Conclusions 144 6.5 Remarks 145 About the authors 145 References 146 Further reading 147
6.1
Introduction
Many governments are adopting specific technologies to harness the power and influence of Information and Communication Technology to meet complex urban challenges and improve the quality of life of their citizens (Ojo, Dzhusupova, & Curry, 2016). The resulting “smart city” concept has become widespread since the European Union launched the Europe 2020 Strategy in 2010, which stimulated governments to use the smart city concept as a key development pathway (Cocchia, 2014).
Smart City Emergence. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-816169-2.00006-7 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Amsterdam was a smart city long before the term was used. In 1611 the establishment of the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange Centre marked Amsterdam as the first smart city in the world since merchants could exchange any information about trade in there (Baron, 2012). In 1994 city’s activists built a digital network for citizens to deliver their protests and notions to politicians (Anthopoulos, 2017), further establishing Amsterdam as a smart city. The city tried to formalize its smart city status in 2009 by establishing a partnership organization, Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), which includes businesses, societal research groups (“middle ground” organizations), knowledge institutions, and local government institutions, who collaborate to develop smart city projects [Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), 2011; van Winden, Oskam, van den Buuse, Schrama, & van Dijck, 2016]. ASC was initiated by a knowledge-based economy organization, the Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM), together with the electricity company Alliander, the Amsterdam Municipality, and an independent research institute, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO) (ASC, 2011), who established the ASC framework based on citizen-oriented strategies (Dameri, 2017). They focused on three main areas, namely, innovative technology, behavioral change, and sustainable economic investment (ASC, 2011). The key idea of this smart city approach is to connect all partners, including citizens, and create a collaborative ecosystem among them to develop and test various small-scale projects in the greater Amsterdam area. The most successful projects could then be scaled up in three ways, namely, via rollout, expansion, or replication (van Winden et al., 2016). Using this approach, ASC expects to contribute to the goals of Amsterdam City and demonstrate successful projects to the rest of the world. The focus of this chapter is to describe the smart city of Amsterdam, and this study aims to explore the ASC organization by investigating its mission and a specific smart city project developed within it. An elaboration of this topic will give readers more of an insight into the smart city concept and its practice in Amsterdam. For this purpose, we focused on the Energy Atlas project, one of the many projects developed by ASC. It is an open-data map containing the baseline and potential for using renewable energy in the city.
6.2
Background
In 2010 the European Union prepared a strategic policy document that specified an agenda for achieving smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth by 2020 (European Commission, 2010). Targets in line with those goals were formulated, including the aim of coping with climate challenges by reducing CO2 emissions by 20% compared with 1990, generating 20% of energy using renewable sources, and improving energy efficiency by 20%. In the Netherlands, these targets were adapted as follows (as an agenda toward 2020): 30% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with 1990, 20% of energy to come from renewable energy sources, and a 2% increase in energy efficiency per year (Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´, 2011). Amsterdam signed the “Covenant of
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Figure 6.1 ASC timeline. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City.
Mayors,”1 thereby adopting a policy with the following goals (as an agenda toward 2025): a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with 1990, climate-neutral municipal institutions before 2015, and 20% of energy generated using renewable energy sources (Capra, 2014). Based on these European national and local targets, the ASC was established to contribute to the accelerated achievement of these targets (Capra, 2014). This is one of the reasons why, during its initiation phase, ASC only focused on climate and energy targets. ASC has grown quickly since it was established in 2009. This is visible in the changes that have been made to its program partners, principles, roles, and focus areas (see Fig. 6.1). Regarding the program partners, the AIM was merged with the Amsterdam Economic Board (AEB), and TNO no longer acts as a program partner; however, other partners have joined. In 2018 ASC comprises 11 program partners divided into four categories, namely, the City of Amsterdam, the private sector, knowledge institutions, and citizen-oriented organizations (ASC, 2017). The City of Amsterdam consists of the Amsterdam Municipality, represented by the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and the AEB, while the private-sector partners consist of Alliander, Amsterdam Arena, KPN, PostNL, Arcadis, and Engie. Amsterdam University of Applied Science is the knowledge institution, and the citizen-oriented group consists of Waag Society and Pakhuis De Zwijger. The websites of these organizations can be found in Section 6.5 at the end of this paper. The principles of ASC have also been modified since 2009. Its framework was initially based on four principles; collective approach, innovation and awareness, knowledge dissemination, and being economically viable. Havelaar (2016) stated that there are now five principles within ASC, as “innovation and awareness” has been removed and two new principles, the “central position of citizens” and “efficient use of resources,” have emerged. It seems that, going forward, the 1
A communal commitment of the Mayors of many European cities to implement a European strategy on Climate and Energy (https://www.covenantofmayors.eu/).
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organization wants to focus more on involving citizens and developing small-scale projects to use resources more efficiently and build more citizen awareness. Havelaar (2016) explained that there have been three changes to the roles played by ASC. From 2008 to 2016, ASC played the role of a project manager that positioned the city at the front of innovation by focusing on milestones. From 2016 until 2020, ASC has taken the role of a community manager that positions its partners at the front by focusing on making small projects a success. Finally, from 2020, its role will be as an organizational manager that positions the citizens at the front by focusing on the project and its upscaling method. The focus areas were also improved. At its outset, ASC only focused on four areas: sustainable living, working, mobility, and public spaces. These were based on intelligent grid management principles and were in line with the main interest of one of its initiators, the electricity provider Alliander. Today, the focus areas have expanded to incorporate other themes, such as digital city, energy, mobility, circular city, governance and education, and citizens and living (ASC, 2018). These themes are flexible, and program partners can add or remove a theme based on the market’s needs. Developments in these focus areas also transform the goals of the organization, from reducing CO2 emissions by saving energy to becoming a future-proof and liveable city by addressing local challenges. Regarding the challenges that should be tackled, van Winden et al. (2016) stated that there are four areas that need to be explored by ASC. First, building an appropriate ecosystem based on strong commitment, while determining a clear shared value for its various partners; second, determining a suitable approach for actor involvement and community building; and third, integrating data from various actors, finally, determining a method of scaling up projects after they finish. The ASC community manager mentions that the organization is still looking for a way to measure the impact of finished projects, which also includes determining the best way to fund projects in the future.
6.2.1 Theoretical approach for Amsterdam Smart City Our observation of the ASC framework reveals its unique combination of an urban innovation system (public private people partnership), a living lab, and a developing business model. In the next subsections, we describe some theoretical aspects of these three elements.
6.2.1.1 Urban innovation system The innovation process in the ASC organization could well be described as an urban innovation system. According to Markatou and Alexandrou (2015), there is currently no consensus on the definition of an innovation system, which can come under four approaches: national, regional, sectoral, and technological innovation systems. van Winden, Braun, Otgaar, and Witte (2014) proposed an urban innovation system framework based on the regional innovation system approach. They stated that
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Figure 6.2 The components of an urban innovation system. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Braun, E., Otgaar, A., & Witte, J.-J. (2014). In S. M. Christopherson, M. Feldman, G. Grabher, R. Martin, & M. Perry (Eds.), Urban innovation systems: What makes them tick? (1st ed.). New York: Routledge.
there are six components that influence the innovation capacity and performance of such a system, namely, the actors, networks, organizations, spatial environment, institutional environment, and external factors. A wide range of institutions can be considered actors in the ASC, and its existence as a platform suggests that this framework best represents the ASC case (see Fig. 6.2). Urban innovation systems are run by actors, who can be firms, knowledge institutions, governments, and/or communities. The combination and commitment of different actors are important for building a strong urban innovation system. Networks refer to the interactions among the actors, which can change in different innovation phases, while platforms are intermediary actors that organize the other actors and their networks. These intermediary actors can consist of a building, organization, meeting or exhibition, website, or even venture capital (see also van Winden et al., 2014). The spatial environment of an urban innovation system includes its geographic location, accessibility, amenities, and “brand name” of a city, while the institutional environment refers to the laws, traditions, and cultures of the city. The external factors include market and technology opportunities, market circumstances, and local demand. In this context, ASC can be seen as the platform to connect actors and build networks to increase the innovation capacity and performance in Amsterdam.
6.2.1.2 Urban living lab The ASC is based on the urban living lab concept, which describes a user-centered open innovation structure that engages users as active contributors to an innovation process (Scholl et al., 2017). According to Steen and van Bueren (2017), an urban living lab has four characteristics. First, the context is related to a real-life use. Second, the participants are users, private and public actors, and knowledge institutions, each of whom has the same decision power in every innovation phase.
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Figure 6.3 Urban living lab process. Source: Adapted from Steen, K., & van Bueren, E. (2017). Urban living labs: A living lab way of working (1st ed.). Amsterdam: AMS Institute.
Third, the activities are related to innovative developments using a cocreation platform. This is an iterative process, meaning that feedback on an innovation result is used to make further improvements, resulting in an improved product, service, application, process, or system (see also Steen and van Bueren, 2017). Finally, its goal is to innovate, to develop knowledge for replication, and to support urban sustainability. Steen and van Bueren (2017) also formulated an eight-step process for using an urban living lab (see Fig. 6.3).
6.2.1.3 Business model ASC needs a business model to guide its operation. According to Diaz-Diaz, Mun˜oz, and Pe´rez-Gonza´lez (2017), the most cited business model definition comes from Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) who stated that a business model is a tool to describe the rational way by which an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Business model frameworks have been developed to help organizations explain their business strategy, with the most used framework, also developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010), focusing on nonprofit organization and public administration. This framework consists of nine blocks describing the organization’s resources and value proposition, customers, and finances. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) also stated that there are five possible patterns of a business model, namely, unbundling, long-tailed, multisided, FREE, and open business models. It seems that ASC mostly uses the FREE and the open business model, which makes at least one customer segment free of charge for all time, with an open business model for the innovation process, which is assembled in a collaborative way between ASC and external organizations to create and deliver a value proposition. Based on our observations, the essential value proposition of ASC itself is to provide a platform where different parties can connect and solve related urban
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problems. Unfortunately, we could not find any relevant illustrations of the business model currently being used by ASC.
6.2.1.4 Concluding remark on the theories The elaboration of each of these theories enables their interlinkage in ASC to be identified. The ASC is an ecosystem of actors, networked and organized in an urban innovation system, who use an urban living lab approach to conduct the innovation process. The innovation products are implemented based on a specific business model, which may be either a FREE or open business model.
6.2.2 Organization of Amsterdam Smart City ASC (2017) stated that its organization is a public private people partnership, where all parties are responsible for all activities in the organization. The public and private parties collaborate as program partners and in turn collaborate with people to develop particular projects. Havelaar (2016) stated that from 2016 to 2020, the role of the organization is more of a community manager, transforming the governance of the organization. There is no recent information available regarding its current organizational structure; therefore we will use the structure as presented by Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´ (2011) here (see Fig. 6.4). The 11 program partners show their commitment by forming steering committees, by providing human resources to the project group, and by paying an annual fee to
Figure 6.4 Interpretation of the current ASC organizational structure. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City. Source: Based on Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). (2018). Amsterdam Smart City. From ,amsterdamsmartcity.com. . Retrieved 12.09.17. Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´, R. (2011). Amsterdam Smart City project overview. Prague: Accenture.
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ASC. In the project group, several project partners are involved in the different phases of project development. This group is supported by the Smart City Academy, a communication group, and a community manager. Each project group has its own activities that fall into one of the six themes, with subprojects for different solutions such as Vehicle2Grid and City Data (digital city subproject); City-zen: Virtual Power Plant and Energy Atlas (energy); Together and Foodlogica (mobility); Ecube Labs and Bundles (Circular City); Powow and StartUp in Residence (Governance and Education); and Civocracy and Transformcity (Citizens and Living) (ASC, 2018).
6.3
Research methodology: case study
Historically, Amsterdam was the center of one of the world’s largest commercial hubs (Gray, 2008). The city even became a “smart city” in 1611 with the establishment of the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange Centre (Baron, 2012), which enabled traders to exchange trade information and increased the volume of trades that could be conducted. Amsterdam has a long history of innovation, with the municipality even declaring that innovation is the DNA of the city (Amsterdam Municipality, 2016). This claim was supported by the European Commission, which awarded the city the title of the innovation capital city of Europe (I-Capital) in 2016. At present, Amsterdam’s innovative culture is used to tackle the city’s challenges and provide solutions for its total population of around 855,000 people (Amsterdam Municipality, 2018). About 68% of these citizens are economically productive (aged between 20 and 64) and influence the economy of the city. Around 25% of all workers in Amsterdam provide professional services (SEO Economisch Onderzoek, 2009). The government of Amsterdam is based on an open-system governance model, with a focus on innovation and change as well as differentiation and decentralization (see Putra, 2018; Newman, 2001). The city council, the college of Mayors and Alderpersons, and the district committees form the municipality (Amsterdam Municipality, 2018), which focuses on four service clusters, economic, social, community, and administrative, and their respective departments. Smart city related topics are the responsibility of departments within the economic cluster. The main municipality stakeholders for the smart city are the CTO and the AEB, although other departments can be involved in a smart city project by contacting the CTO or ASC directly (see Fig. 6.5). To provide a clearer insight into the smart city project and the role of different stakeholders in Amsterdam the management of a smart city project conducted by ASC, the Energy Atlas project, will be explored in the following sections.
6.3.1 Scope According to van Winden et al. (2016), ASC focuses on three themes during its innovation process; energy, mobility, and the circular economy. Amsterdam is currently
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Figure 6.5 The involvement of Amsterdam Municipality departments in ASC. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City.
focusing to implement an energy transition to cope with climate-related issues (van Winden et al., 2016); therefore we decided to pick a project from the energy theme to present the innovation scope and project management within ASC. We selected the Energy Atlas project as our case study based on data availability (primary and secondary), the continuity and complexity of the project, and the success story behind it. Energy Atlas is an interactive open-data map containing the baseline current usage and prospects for renewable energy usage in the city (see Fig. 6.6). This project was begun in 2012 to provide information to all stakeholders in the city under the ASC organization. The Energy Atlas project was led by an officer from the sustainability and planning department of the municipality, who said that the use of this map enables stakeholders to quickly identify their business case for applying renewable energy in a particular area (van Winden et al., 2016). This project also aimed to help the city to accelerate its energy transition to reduce CO2 emissions. It can be accessed through this link: https://maps.amsterdam.nl/open_geodata/ under the “sustainability” label.
6.3.2 Integration Amsterdam agreed to a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2025, which requires an energy transition involving the substantial reduction of nonrenewable energy
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Figure 6.6 Amsterdam Energy Atlas visualization. Source: From Amsterdam Municipality. (2014). Energy-use of gas and electricity energy. From ,https://maps.amsterdam.nl/energie_gaselektra/?LANG 5 en. . Retrieved 27.05.18 (Amsterdam Municipality, 2014).
usage in the city. The municipality therefore needed a baseline dataset to provide insights into the current energy usage and provide a tool to highlight the potential use of all types of renewable energy in the city. The ultimate goal of this project was to provide an open-data resource for all stakeholders in the city, enabling them to quickly determine which types of renewable energy can be applied in a certain area. After signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the European cities that joined “TRANSFORM,” a carbon reduction program from the European Commission, the Amsterdam Municipality had more power to engage related stakeholders to further develop the Energy Atlas. Initially, the municipality cooperated with Liander, an energy company and a key partner in ASC, to provide the energy data. Under an agreement between the stakeholders the municipality began to collaborate with other public utility providers and housing corporations to obtain energy data without impacting customer privacy. After aligning all data formats and building the system the Energy Atlas was successfully launched and made publicly accessible in 2014.
6.3.3 Organization The Energy Atlas was organized by the municipality alongside public utility providers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), with additional collaboration from private companies and knowledge institutions (see Fig. 6.7) (van Winden et al., 2016). Each partner in the organization has their own level of influence and interest in the project. A stakeholder analysis can be drawn based on this (see Fig. 6.8). Most of the stakeholders are key players, yet possess different levels of influence and interest. The most powerful and interested stakeholder is the public
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Figure 6.7 Energy Atlas project stakeholders. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
Figure 6.8 Energy Atlas project stakeholder analysis. Source: Based on van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
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organization, the municipality. They can encourage the public utility providers to share their data and cocreate in this project, which also provides these companies with significant levels of influence as the providers of the main resource, the energy database. The public utility providers became more interested in the project when the municipality gave them clear information about the long-term benefits of sharing their data (van Winden et al., 2016), which was also true of the NGOs (housing corporations). Two other stakeholders, the private companies and the knowledge institution, were simply kept informed by the key players, as they had limited power in the implementation of this project. The private company Accenture was hired by the Amsterdam Municipality as a consultant to organize the project management, while Zonatlas helped the key players to identify the potential rooftops suitable for solar panels in Amsterdam. The knowledge institution TNO offered to conduct research on the implementation of the project to support the key players.
6.3.4 Timescale The Energy Atlas was developed between 2012 and 2014 and was quickly implemented when the municipality joined the EU-funded program “TRANSFORM” (van Winden et al., 2016). During this period the Energy Atlas was developed by encouraging the involvement of key stakeholders (public utility providers and housing corporations), integrating all the gathered data into one database, and analyzing the data for energy simulation. In 2014 the Energy Atlas was published as an online map. The overall timeline of the Energy Atlas development is presented in Fig. 6.9.
6.3.5 Cost The cost for the Energy Atlas was mostly covered by the European Commission through the “TRANSFORM” program. We could not find the exact budget allocation for the development of the Energy Atlas, but we identified the parties who funded the project (see Table 6.1). The project leader mentioned that most of the cost came from outside of the municipality, meaning the budget use could be tangibly controlled by external parties. The key parties therefore used their
Figure 6.9 Timeline of Energy Atlas project development. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
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Table 6.1 Cost of energy atlas. No.
Budget
Total (h/month)
Remark
European Commission (TRANSFORM Program) Amsterdam Investment Fund Energy loan Involved organizations
n/a
No specific data given
n/a n/a n/a
No specific data given No specific data given No specific data given
10,000 180,000
Based on the source Based on the source
6 190,000
Interpreted from the source
Income 1 2 3 4 Total
Outcome 1 2
Exploration of project ideas Energy Atlas development Human resources (majority of cost) Technology G
G
Total
Source: Data from Boogert, G., Mantel, B., Mollay, U., & Schremmer, C. (2015). TRANSFORM synthesis report: Final version. Belgium.
budget efficiently, which could be one of the reasons why this project finished on time and with good quality. The long-term economic viability of the project was secured by Energy Fund, an institution that was established in 2015 after the publication of the Energy Atlas (Amsterdam Municipality, 2015).
6.3.6 Quality Several general standards were used for the Energy Atlas project, including for the data gathering, analysis, and visualization. Data gathering was based on an agreement between the municipality and the public utility providers and housing corporations. The data had to meet specific legal requirements from each party, that is, user data privacy and security, and the location of critical infrastructure. The data analysis had to be in line with the project aims, and the information could therefore only be used for providing the baseline, prospects, and simulation of the energy use of Amsterdam. The data visualization had to be user-friendly. The project leader said that no specific standards had to be taken into account when the stakeholders developed the project, such as contract penalties or warranty periods.
6.3.7 Risks The project team had to overcome several risks, such as data privacy and security. The municipality decided to only use general energy data, because publishing
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individual customer data from public utility providers is too sensitive. An agreement was also made for the location of the critical infrastructure, in which they decided to publish only the energy infrastructure without its critical points (van Winden et al., 2016).
6.3.8 Procurement The Energy Atlas was built using a public private partnership agreement. The European Commission provided the initial funds for the project through the “TRANSFORM” program, enabling the municipality to work with Liander to create a prototype of the Energy Atlas as a tool to present to other stakeholders. The prototype successfully helped the municipality to encourage other public utility providers and housing corporations to share their data. The published Energy Atlas can now be used to create business plans for small open innovation activities targeting energy use.
6.3.9 Discussion The overview presented in Fig. 6.10 provides a clearer insight into the development of the Energy Atlas project, one of the smart city projects in ASC. As Boogert, Mantel, Mollay, and Schremmer (2015) outlined, this project provided several key insights into such projects: 1. Stakeholder management was necessary for the implementation of the project. It was necessary for the municipality to encourage the public utility providers and housing corporations to share their energy data by highlighting the benefits to them. In this phase the role of ASC is crucial for connecting all partners and facilitating their roles during the project development. 2. Collaboration between the municipality, industry, and research institutions was fundamental for successful research during the project development. The municipality has to convince the stakeholders to take part and therefore requires scientific research materials that can be presented to the stakeholders.
Figure 6.10 Overview of the development of the Energy Atlas project.
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3. A prototype of the Energy Atlas was helpful to share the project idea. The prototype became a tool for convincing stakeholders, especially in terms of their decision to make a long-term investment in the project by freely sharing their data. 4. The project is still focused on the energy use, prospects, and networks at a residential/ building scale, so innovative solutions may only emerge at that scale. 5. The data in the Energy Atlas are static and require ongoing updating. ASC therefore plays a crucial role in ensuring that the energy data are kept updated by the stakeholders in the future.
Overall, the project met its initial objective of publishing energy data as a tool for users to quickly develop innovative energy solutions. Another achieved objective was to gather energy data from several different providers in the city. This successful cooperation between the municipality and the stakeholders was established with the help of ASC, who makes connections between the actors, and facilitated their collaboration. As the Energy Atlas is an open-data map, no feedback has currently been recorded from its end users. The project leader clarified that no publication or media outlet has reflected on the use of the Energy Atlas; however, an organization based on a public private people partnership between various parties in SouthEast Amsterdam, ZO Circular, has demonstrated the benefit of the Energy Atlas (Boogert et al., 2015). They used the data and tools from the Energy Atlas to guide interventions regarding heat usage and the implementation of solar projects in their district, which helped them to build a strategic plan for a more sustainable SouthEast Amsterdam. This reveals that the Energy Atlas has helped its users in decision-making processes and in their development of business strategies based on energy transition. As the Energy Atlas is the only freely accessible system providing real energy usage data, it may attract the attention of parties all over the world (Boogert et al., 2015). The reliability and usability of its data mean the Energy Atlas could be used to attract investments for energy transitions and define new challenges for innovation by enabling people to make innovative business decisions to cope with energy challenges. This project is based on the collaboration and a MoU between European cities. Amsterdam can use this coalition to increase the competitiveness of Energy Atlas usage at the regional scale, which is even being scaled up toward the national level (the Netherlands). This project can therefore successfully compete in the international smart city competition, enabling more cities all over the world to learn from Amsterdam. In an official document containing frequently asked questions, ASC (2017) stated that it is an innovative organization for future-proof city development, which acts by identifying and connecting parties and accelerating breakthrough ideas to address city challenges. They facilitate the innovation process based on the collaboration of a public private people partnership, providing an actor network for the stakeholders. The collaborative principle of ASC based on public private partnerships was implemented well in the development of the Energy Atlas project, as highlighted by the collaboration between the municipality and the private
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stakeholders who possess the energy data. The public body (the municipality) acted as an initiator and coordinator for the project, helping the private parties (particularly the public utility providers and housing corporations) to realize the benefit of sharing their data and act as providers for the project. ASC fulfilled its claim of being a facilitator for stakeholders to collaborate and develop innovations. They helped the municipality to connect with its key partner, Liander, and enabled them to accelerate the development of the Energy Atlas; however, the citizens of Amsterdam were not represented well during the process. This was accepted because the development of the project did not require any feedback or assistance from individuals. Now that the Energy Atlas has been published, the people of Amsterdam can contribute by providing feedback to the municipality regarding its data and tools. We can therefore conclude that ASC successfully operationalized their working concept.
6.4
Conclusions
ASC reports at least four lessons learnt from the implementation of the Energy Atlas project. (1) A smart city is not only about developing an advanced technological solution but also the empowerment of actors in the city to innovate in response to recent city challenges. (2) Technology is only one tool for tackling city challenges. The Energy Atlas, as an innovative technology, is a medium to enable people to create and adapt business ideas to contribute to tackling energy challenges. (3) To innovate, actors need to collaborate based on an agreement and trust each other. (4) A partnership organization such as ASC is required for a smart city to connect the relevant actors, facilitate cocreation processes, and accelerate innovations. Summing up the lesson learnt, ASC has taught us that technology is not the end goal of a smart city but only one of the tools needed to achieve the goals. The essential “smart” ideas come from the people in the city, who create innovative solutions to cope with contemporary city challenges and effectively manage them. An innovative solution involves not only technology but also nontechnological advances, such as a new community system or different ways of financing. From ASC, we also learned that a collaborative ecosystem is important for facilitating innovation. It should be stressed that there is a wide range of projects across the ASC themes, all with different purposes, setups, and impacts. Some of them are already successful, while others are still in the development phase. The Energy Atlas is a very successful example, and its usability and possibilities have begun to be translated to other fields of innovation within ASC. The collaboration within the Energy Atlas project is more between organizations and businesses (public private) than a partnership with the citizens themselves; however, which would likely not be possible for some of the other smart city projects. In the future, it seems likely that ASC will adjust their role and focus to not only connect partners in a collaborative way
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but also to build an effective measurement of impact and develop processes for scaling up successfully implemented smart city projects. The Energy Atlas project almost failed to encourage stakeholders to share their energy data but was able to continue because the “TRANSFORM” program from the European Commission strengthened the position of the Amsterdam Municipality to involve energy stakeholders. This shows that political and financial commitments from higher levels of government will help smart city projects to run well. The EU trigger and institutional backup have been demonstrated to be important aspects in the implementation of smart city projects. All actors focusing on the smart city concept, such as governments, private organizations, and scholars, need to be aware that a smart city must be driven by people as well as technology in order to cope with contemporary city challenges. Smart cities trigger an innovative and collaborative ecosystem; therefore, future research should focus more on the innovation process and actor engagement in these projects.
6.5
Remarks
Amsterdam Smart City Alliander Liander Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Amsterdam Economic Board Amsterdam Arena KPN PostNL Arcadis Engie Amsterdam University of Applied Science Waag Society Pakhuis De Zwijger
https://amsterdamsmartcity.com/ https://www.alliander.com/ https://www.liander.nl https://www.tno.nl
https://www.amsterdameconomicboard.com https://www.johancruijffarena.nl/home-1.htm https://www.kpn.com https://www.postnl.nl https://www.arcadis.com https://www.engie.nl http://www.amsterdamuas.com/ https://waag.org https://dezwijger.nl
About the authors Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra studied Urban Environmental Management with a specialization in Land Use Planning at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He is an urban planner, specializing in smart city and innovation systems. His thesis concerned the interaction between smart city projects as local initiatives and government environmental policies, with a focus on Amsterdam. He was a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Innovation Officer in the United Nations for Development Program in Indonesia before taking on a new role as a research
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assistant in the Urban and Regional Planning Study Program at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. He also has experience with climate action research, gained by participating in the Venlo Circular Challenge held by Sustainable Motion Netherlands, as well as from a summer school called “Journey” organized by Climate-KIC, European Institute of Innovation and Technology, European Union. He is an experienced urban planner and works on urban and regional planning, mapping, urban design, innovation systems, and SDG projects in consultancy firms and in the United Nations agency in Indonesia. For further correspondence, make contact via [email protected]. Wim van der Knaap studied Landscape engineering at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and is now an assistant professor in the university’s Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, specializing in planning aspects for urban/rural fringe developments, especially in the metropolitan area. He thereby focuses on planning processes around contemporary issues such as the impacts of climate change and water-related topics. His main interests are in the participation processes related to the technological developments and impacts related to these planning processes, and he has participated in several projects across Europe to study rural/urban developments and their accompanying issues. For further correspondence, make contact via [email protected].
References Amsterdam Municipality. (2014). Energy-use of gas and electricity energy. From ,https:// maps.amsterdam.nl/energie_gaselektra/?LANG 5 en. Retrieved 27.05.18. Amsterdam Municipality. (2015). Sustainable Amsterdam: Agenda for renewable energy, clear air, a circular economy, and a climate-resilient city. Amsterdam. Amsterdam Municipality. (2016). Amsterdam and Europe: Historical ties. Amsterdam. Amsterdam Municipality. The governing bodies of Amsterdam. (2018). From ,https://www. amsterdam.nl/en/governance-city-hall/governing-bodies/. Retrieved 25.05.18. Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). (2011). Smart stories: AmsmarterdamCity. Amsterdam. Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). (2017). Frequently asked questions: AmsmarterdamCity. Amsterdam. Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). (2018). Amsterdam Smart City. From ,amsterdamsmartcity. com. Retrieved 12.09.17. Anthopoulos, L. G. (2017). In C. G. Reddick (Ed.), Understanding smart cities: A tool for smart government or an industrial trick? Cham: Springer International Publishing. Baron, G. (2012). Amsterdam Smart City. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Municipality. Boogert, G., Mantel, B., Mollay, U., & Schremmer, C. (2015). TRANSFORM synthesis report: Final version. Belgium. Capra, C. F. (2014). The smart city and its citizens governance and citizen participation in Amsterdam Smart City. Erasmus University Rotterdam. Cocchia, A. (2014). Smart and digital city: A systematic literature review. In R. P. Dameri, & C. Rosenthal-Sabroux (Eds.), Smart city: How to create public and economic value with high technology in urban space (pp. 13 43). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Available from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06160-3.
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Dameri, R. P. (2017). Smart city implementation: Creating economic and public value in innovative urban systems (1st ed.). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Available from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45766-6. Diaz-Diaz, R., Mun˜oz, L., & Pe´rez-Gonza´lez, D. (2017). The business model evaluation tool for smart cities: Application to SmartSantander use cases. Energies, 10, 1 30. Available from https://doi.org/10.3390/en10030262. European Commission. (2010). EUROPE 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth. Brussels. Gray, J. (2008). Amsterdam lonely planet (1st ed.). Amsterdam: Lonely Planet. Havelaar, R. (2016). Best practices and lessons learned from a global village with 8 years’ experience in citizen engagement. Seminar Presentation, Thurgau: Suisse Energie. Retrieved from ,http://www.smartcity-suisse.ch/fileadmin/user_upload/SmartCity/ de/Dateien/Praesentationen_StGallen_2016/2_Rogier_Havelar_Amsterdam_Smart_City_ web.pdf.. Markatou, M., & Alexandrou, E. (2015). Urban system of innovation: Main agents and main factors of success. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 240 250. Available from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.355. Newman, J. (2001). Modernizing governance: New labour policy and society (1st ed.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Ojo, A., Dzhusupova, Z., & Curry, E. (2016). Exploring the nature of the smart cities research landscape. In J. R. Gil-Garcia, T. A. Pardo, & T. Nam (Eds.), Smarter as the new urban agenda: A comprehensive view of the 21st century city (1st ed., pp. 23 47). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Available from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3319-17620-8. Osterwalder, A., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business model generation (1st ed). New Jersey: Wiley. Putra, Z. D. W. (2018). The interaction between non-government-based smart city projects and government-based environmental management: The case of Amsterdam. Wageningen University. Available from https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13651.48161. Scholl, C., Ablasser, G., Eriksen, M.A., Baerten, N., Blok, J., Clark, E., Friendrich, Z. (2017). In C. Scholl, M. A. Eriksen, N. Baerten, E. Clark, T. Drage, T. Hoeflehner, P. Wlasak (Eds.), Guidelines for urban labs. Antwerp: URB@exp. SEO Economisch Onderzoek. (2009). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Self-evaluation report. Amsterdam. Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´, R. (2011). Amsterdam smart city project overview. Prague: Accenture. Steen, K., & van Bueren, E. (2017). Urban living labs: A living lab way of working (1st ed.). Amsterdam: AMS Institute. van Winden, W., Braun, E., Otgaar, A., & Witte, J.-J. (2014). In S. M. Christopherson, M. Feldman, G. Grabher, R. Martin, & M. Perry (Eds.), Urban innovation systems: What makes them tick? (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising smart city projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
Further reading Athey, G., Nathan, M., Webber, C., & Mahroum, S. (2008). Innovation and the city. Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 10(2), 156 169.
6
Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra1 and Wim van der Knaap2 1 Urban and Regional Planning Study Program, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Chapter Outline 6.1 Introduction 129 6.2 Background 130 6.2.1 Theoretical approach for Amsterdam Smart City 132 6.2.2 Organization of Amsterdam Smart City 135
6.3 Research methodology: case study 6.3.1 6.3.2 6.3.3 6.3.4 6.3.5 6.3.6 6.3.7 6.3.8 6.3.9
136
Scope 136 Integration 137 Organization 138 Timescale 140 Cost 140 Quality 141 Risks 141 Procurement 142 Discussion 142
6.4 Conclusions 144 6.5 Remarks 145 About the authors 145 References 146 Further reading 147
6.1
Introduction
Many governments are adopting specific technologies to harness the power and influence of Information and Communication Technology to meet complex urban challenges and improve the quality of life of their citizens (Ojo, Dzhusupova, & Curry, 2016). The resulting “smart city” concept has become widespread since the European Union launched the Europe 2020 Strategy in 2010, which stimulated governments to use the smart city concept as a key development pathway (Cocchia, 2014).
Smart City Emergence. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-816169-2.00006-7 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Amsterdam was a smart city long before the term was used. In 1611 the establishment of the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange Centre marked Amsterdam as the first smart city in the world since merchants could exchange any information about trade in there (Baron, 2012). In 1994 city’s activists built a digital network for citizens to deliver their protests and notions to politicians (Anthopoulos, 2017), further establishing Amsterdam as a smart city. The city tried to formalize its smart city status in 2009 by establishing a partnership organization, Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), which includes businesses, societal research groups (“middle ground” organizations), knowledge institutions, and local government institutions, who collaborate to develop smart city projects [Amsterdam Smart City (ASC), 2011; van Winden, Oskam, van den Buuse, Schrama, & van Dijck, 2016]. ASC was initiated by a knowledge-based economy organization, the Amsterdam Innovation Motor (AIM), together with the electricity company Alliander, the Amsterdam Municipality, and an independent research institute, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (TNO) (ASC, 2011), who established the ASC framework based on citizen-oriented strategies (Dameri, 2017). They focused on three main areas, namely, innovative technology, behavioral change, and sustainable economic investment (ASC, 2011). The key idea of this smart city approach is to connect all partners, including citizens, and create a collaborative ecosystem among them to develop and test various small-scale projects in the greater Amsterdam area. The most successful projects could then be scaled up in three ways, namely, via rollout, expansion, or replication (van Winden et al., 2016). Using this approach, ASC expects to contribute to the goals of Amsterdam City and demonstrate successful projects to the rest of the world. The focus of this chapter is to describe the smart city of Amsterdam, and this study aims to explore the ASC organization by investigating its mission and a specific smart city project developed within it. An elaboration of this topic will give readers more of an insight into the smart city concept and its practice in Amsterdam. For this purpose, we focused on the Energy Atlas project, one of the many projects developed by ASC. It is an open-data map containing the baseline and potential for using renewable energy in the city.
6.2
Background
In 2010 the European Union prepared a strategic policy document that specified an agenda for achieving smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth by 2020 (European Commission, 2010). Targets in line with those goals were formulated, including the aim of coping with climate challenges by reducing CO2 emissions by 20% compared with 1990, generating 20% of energy using renewable sources, and improving energy efficiency by 20%. In the Netherlands, these targets were adapted as follows (as an agenda toward 2020): 30% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with 1990, 20% of energy to come from renewable energy sources, and a 2% increase in energy efficiency per year (Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´, 2011). Amsterdam signed the “Covenant of
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Figure 6.1 ASC timeline. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City.
Mayors,”1 thereby adopting a policy with the following goals (as an agenda toward 2025): a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with 1990, climate-neutral municipal institutions before 2015, and 20% of energy generated using renewable energy sources (Capra, 2014). Based on these European national and local targets, the ASC was established to contribute to the accelerated achievement of these targets (Capra, 2014). This is one of the reasons why, during its initiation phase, ASC only focused on climate and energy targets. ASC has grown quickly since it was established in 2009. This is visible in the changes that have been made to its program partners, principles, roles, and focus areas (see Fig. 6.1). Regarding the program partners, the AIM was merged with the Amsterdam Economic Board (AEB), and TNO no longer acts as a program partner; however, other partners have joined. In 2018 ASC comprises 11 program partners divided into four categories, namely, the City of Amsterdam, the private sector, knowledge institutions, and citizen-oriented organizations (ASC, 2017). The City of Amsterdam consists of the Amsterdam Municipality, represented by the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and the AEB, while the private-sector partners consist of Alliander, Amsterdam Arena, KPN, PostNL, Arcadis, and Engie. Amsterdam University of Applied Science is the knowledge institution, and the citizen-oriented group consists of Waag Society and Pakhuis De Zwijger. The websites of these organizations can be found in Section 6.5 at the end of this paper. The principles of ASC have also been modified since 2009. Its framework was initially based on four principles; collective approach, innovation and awareness, knowledge dissemination, and being economically viable. Havelaar (2016) stated that there are now five principles within ASC, as “innovation and awareness” has been removed and two new principles, the “central position of citizens” and “efficient use of resources,” have emerged. It seems that, going forward, the 1
A communal commitment of the Mayors of many European cities to implement a European strategy on Climate and Energy (https://www.covenantofmayors.eu/).
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organization wants to focus more on involving citizens and developing small-scale projects to use resources more efficiently and build more citizen awareness. Havelaar (2016) explained that there have been three changes to the roles played by ASC. From 2008 to 2016, ASC played the role of a project manager that positioned the city at the front of innovation by focusing on milestones. From 2016 until 2020, ASC has taken the role of a community manager that positions its partners at the front by focusing on making small projects a success. Finally, from 2020, its role will be as an organizational manager that positions the citizens at the front by focusing on the project and its upscaling method. The focus areas were also improved. At its outset, ASC only focused on four areas: sustainable living, working, mobility, and public spaces. These were based on intelligent grid management principles and were in line with the main interest of one of its initiators, the electricity provider Alliander. Today, the focus areas have expanded to incorporate other themes, such as digital city, energy, mobility, circular city, governance and education, and citizens and living (ASC, 2018). These themes are flexible, and program partners can add or remove a theme based on the market’s needs. Developments in these focus areas also transform the goals of the organization, from reducing CO2 emissions by saving energy to becoming a future-proof and liveable city by addressing local challenges. Regarding the challenges that should be tackled, van Winden et al. (2016) stated that there are four areas that need to be explored by ASC. First, building an appropriate ecosystem based on strong commitment, while determining a clear shared value for its various partners; second, determining a suitable approach for actor involvement and community building; and third, integrating data from various actors, finally, determining a method of scaling up projects after they finish. The ASC community manager mentions that the organization is still looking for a way to measure the impact of finished projects, which also includes determining the best way to fund projects in the future.
6.2.1 Theoretical approach for Amsterdam Smart City Our observation of the ASC framework reveals its unique combination of an urban innovation system (public private people partnership), a living lab, and a developing business model. In the next subsections, we describe some theoretical aspects of these three elements.
6.2.1.1 Urban innovation system The innovation process in the ASC organization could well be described as an urban innovation system. According to Markatou and Alexandrou (2015), there is currently no consensus on the definition of an innovation system, which can come under four approaches: national, regional, sectoral, and technological innovation systems. van Winden, Braun, Otgaar, and Witte (2014) proposed an urban innovation system framework based on the regional innovation system approach. They stated that
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Figure 6.2 The components of an urban innovation system. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Braun, E., Otgaar, A., & Witte, J.-J. (2014). In S. M. Christopherson, M. Feldman, G. Grabher, R. Martin, & M. Perry (Eds.), Urban innovation systems: What makes them tick? (1st ed.). New York: Routledge.
there are six components that influence the innovation capacity and performance of such a system, namely, the actors, networks, organizations, spatial environment, institutional environment, and external factors. A wide range of institutions can be considered actors in the ASC, and its existence as a platform suggests that this framework best represents the ASC case (see Fig. 6.2). Urban innovation systems are run by actors, who can be firms, knowledge institutions, governments, and/or communities. The combination and commitment of different actors are important for building a strong urban innovation system. Networks refer to the interactions among the actors, which can change in different innovation phases, while platforms are intermediary actors that organize the other actors and their networks. These intermediary actors can consist of a building, organization, meeting or exhibition, website, or even venture capital (see also van Winden et al., 2014). The spatial environment of an urban innovation system includes its geographic location, accessibility, amenities, and “brand name” of a city, while the institutional environment refers to the laws, traditions, and cultures of the city. The external factors include market and technology opportunities, market circumstances, and local demand. In this context, ASC can be seen as the platform to connect actors and build networks to increase the innovation capacity and performance in Amsterdam.
6.2.1.2 Urban living lab The ASC is based on the urban living lab concept, which describes a user-centered open innovation structure that engages users as active contributors to an innovation process (Scholl et al., 2017). According to Steen and van Bueren (2017), an urban living lab has four characteristics. First, the context is related to a real-life use. Second, the participants are users, private and public actors, and knowledge institutions, each of whom has the same decision power in every innovation phase.
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Figure 6.3 Urban living lab process. Source: Adapted from Steen, K., & van Bueren, E. (2017). Urban living labs: A living lab way of working (1st ed.). Amsterdam: AMS Institute.
Third, the activities are related to innovative developments using a cocreation platform. This is an iterative process, meaning that feedback on an innovation result is used to make further improvements, resulting in an improved product, service, application, process, or system (see also Steen and van Bueren, 2017). Finally, its goal is to innovate, to develop knowledge for replication, and to support urban sustainability. Steen and van Bueren (2017) also formulated an eight-step process for using an urban living lab (see Fig. 6.3).
6.2.1.3 Business model ASC needs a business model to guide its operation. According to Diaz-Diaz, Mun˜oz, and Pe´rez-Gonza´lez (2017), the most cited business model definition comes from Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) who stated that a business model is a tool to describe the rational way by which an organization creates, delivers, and captures value. Business model frameworks have been developed to help organizations explain their business strategy, with the most used framework, also developed by Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010), focusing on nonprofit organization and public administration. This framework consists of nine blocks describing the organization’s resources and value proposition, customers, and finances. Osterwalder and Pigneur (2010) also stated that there are five possible patterns of a business model, namely, unbundling, long-tailed, multisided, FREE, and open business models. It seems that ASC mostly uses the FREE and the open business model, which makes at least one customer segment free of charge for all time, with an open business model for the innovation process, which is assembled in a collaborative way between ASC and external organizations to create and deliver a value proposition. Based on our observations, the essential value proposition of ASC itself is to provide a platform where different parties can connect and solve related urban
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problems. Unfortunately, we could not find any relevant illustrations of the business model currently being used by ASC.
6.2.1.4 Concluding remark on the theories The elaboration of each of these theories enables their interlinkage in ASC to be identified. The ASC is an ecosystem of actors, networked and organized in an urban innovation system, who use an urban living lab approach to conduct the innovation process. The innovation products are implemented based on a specific business model, which may be either a FREE or open business model.
6.2.2 Organization of Amsterdam Smart City ASC (2017) stated that its organization is a public private people partnership, where all parties are responsible for all activities in the organization. The public and private parties collaborate as program partners and in turn collaborate with people to develop particular projects. Havelaar (2016) stated that from 2016 to 2020, the role of the organization is more of a community manager, transforming the governance of the organization. There is no recent information available regarding its current organizational structure; therefore we will use the structure as presented by Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´ (2011) here (see Fig. 6.4). The 11 program partners show their commitment by forming steering committees, by providing human resources to the project group, and by paying an annual fee to
Figure 6.4 Interpretation of the current ASC organizational structure. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City. Source: Based on Amsterdam Smart City (ASC). (2018). Amsterdam Smart City. From ,amsterdamsmartcity.com. . Retrieved 12.09.17. Sˇ ˇta´hlavsky´, R. (2011). Amsterdam Smart City project overview. Prague: Accenture.
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ASC. In the project group, several project partners are involved in the different phases of project development. This group is supported by the Smart City Academy, a communication group, and a community manager. Each project group has its own activities that fall into one of the six themes, with subprojects for different solutions such as Vehicle2Grid and City Data (digital city subproject); City-zen: Virtual Power Plant and Energy Atlas (energy); Together and Foodlogica (mobility); Ecube Labs and Bundles (Circular City); Powow and StartUp in Residence (Governance and Education); and Civocracy and Transformcity (Citizens and Living) (ASC, 2018).
6.3
Research methodology: case study
Historically, Amsterdam was the center of one of the world’s largest commercial hubs (Gray, 2008). The city even became a “smart city” in 1611 with the establishment of the Hendrick de Keyser Exchange Centre (Baron, 2012), which enabled traders to exchange trade information and increased the volume of trades that could be conducted. Amsterdam has a long history of innovation, with the municipality even declaring that innovation is the DNA of the city (Amsterdam Municipality, 2016). This claim was supported by the European Commission, which awarded the city the title of the innovation capital city of Europe (I-Capital) in 2016. At present, Amsterdam’s innovative culture is used to tackle the city’s challenges and provide solutions for its total population of around 855,000 people (Amsterdam Municipality, 2018). About 68% of these citizens are economically productive (aged between 20 and 64) and influence the economy of the city. Around 25% of all workers in Amsterdam provide professional services (SEO Economisch Onderzoek, 2009). The government of Amsterdam is based on an open-system governance model, with a focus on innovation and change as well as differentiation and decentralization (see Putra, 2018; Newman, 2001). The city council, the college of Mayors and Alderpersons, and the district committees form the municipality (Amsterdam Municipality, 2018), which focuses on four service clusters, economic, social, community, and administrative, and their respective departments. Smart city related topics are the responsibility of departments within the economic cluster. The main municipality stakeholders for the smart city are the CTO and the AEB, although other departments can be involved in a smart city project by contacting the CTO or ASC directly (see Fig. 6.5). To provide a clearer insight into the smart city project and the role of different stakeholders in Amsterdam the management of a smart city project conducted by ASC, the Energy Atlas project, will be explored in the following sections.
6.3.1 Scope According to van Winden et al. (2016), ASC focuses on three themes during its innovation process; energy, mobility, and the circular economy. Amsterdam is currently
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Figure 6.5 The involvement of Amsterdam Municipality departments in ASC. ASC, Amsterdam Smart City.
focusing to implement an energy transition to cope with climate-related issues (van Winden et al., 2016); therefore we decided to pick a project from the energy theme to present the innovation scope and project management within ASC. We selected the Energy Atlas project as our case study based on data availability (primary and secondary), the continuity and complexity of the project, and the success story behind it. Energy Atlas is an interactive open-data map containing the baseline current usage and prospects for renewable energy usage in the city (see Fig. 6.6). This project was begun in 2012 to provide information to all stakeholders in the city under the ASC organization. The Energy Atlas project was led by an officer from the sustainability and planning department of the municipality, who said that the use of this map enables stakeholders to quickly identify their business case for applying renewable energy in a particular area (van Winden et al., 2016). This project also aimed to help the city to accelerate its energy transition to reduce CO2 emissions. It can be accessed through this link: https://maps.amsterdam.nl/open_geodata/ under the “sustainability” label.
6.3.2 Integration Amsterdam agreed to a 40% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2025, which requires an energy transition involving the substantial reduction of nonrenewable energy
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Figure 6.6 Amsterdam Energy Atlas visualization. Source: From Amsterdam Municipality. (2014). Energy-use of gas and electricity energy. From ,https://maps.amsterdam.nl/energie_gaselektra/?LANG 5 en. . Retrieved 27.05.18 (Amsterdam Municipality, 2014).
usage in the city. The municipality therefore needed a baseline dataset to provide insights into the current energy usage and provide a tool to highlight the potential use of all types of renewable energy in the city. The ultimate goal of this project was to provide an open-data resource for all stakeholders in the city, enabling them to quickly determine which types of renewable energy can be applied in a certain area. After signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the European cities that joined “TRANSFORM,” a carbon reduction program from the European Commission, the Amsterdam Municipality had more power to engage related stakeholders to further develop the Energy Atlas. Initially, the municipality cooperated with Liander, an energy company and a key partner in ASC, to provide the energy data. Under an agreement between the stakeholders the municipality began to collaborate with other public utility providers and housing corporations to obtain energy data without impacting customer privacy. After aligning all data formats and building the system the Energy Atlas was successfully launched and made publicly accessible in 2014.
6.3.3 Organization The Energy Atlas was organized by the municipality alongside public utility providers and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), with additional collaboration from private companies and knowledge institutions (see Fig. 6.7) (van Winden et al., 2016). Each partner in the organization has their own level of influence and interest in the project. A stakeholder analysis can be drawn based on this (see Fig. 6.8). Most of the stakeholders are key players, yet possess different levels of influence and interest. The most powerful and interested stakeholder is the public
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Figure 6.7 Energy Atlas project stakeholders. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
Figure 6.8 Energy Atlas project stakeholder analysis. Source: Based on van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
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organization, the municipality. They can encourage the public utility providers to share their data and cocreate in this project, which also provides these companies with significant levels of influence as the providers of the main resource, the energy database. The public utility providers became more interested in the project when the municipality gave them clear information about the long-term benefits of sharing their data (van Winden et al., 2016), which was also true of the NGOs (housing corporations). Two other stakeholders, the private companies and the knowledge institution, were simply kept informed by the key players, as they had limited power in the implementation of this project. The private company Accenture was hired by the Amsterdam Municipality as a consultant to organize the project management, while Zonatlas helped the key players to identify the potential rooftops suitable for solar panels in Amsterdam. The knowledge institution TNO offered to conduct research on the implementation of the project to support the key players.
6.3.4 Timescale The Energy Atlas was developed between 2012 and 2014 and was quickly implemented when the municipality joined the EU-funded program “TRANSFORM” (van Winden et al., 2016). During this period the Energy Atlas was developed by encouraging the involvement of key stakeholders (public utility providers and housing corporations), integrating all the gathered data into one database, and analyzing the data for energy simulation. In 2014 the Energy Atlas was published as an online map. The overall timeline of the Energy Atlas development is presented in Fig. 6.9.
6.3.5 Cost The cost for the Energy Atlas was mostly covered by the European Commission through the “TRANSFORM” program. We could not find the exact budget allocation for the development of the Energy Atlas, but we identified the parties who funded the project (see Table 6.1). The project leader mentioned that most of the cost came from outside of the municipality, meaning the budget use could be tangibly controlled by external parties. The key parties therefore used their
Figure 6.9 Timeline of Energy Atlas project development. Source: Adapted from van Winden, W., Oskam, I., van den Buuse, D., Schrama, W., & van Dijck, E. (2016). Organising Smart City projects: Lessons from Amsterdam. Amsterdam.
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Table 6.1 Cost of energy atlas. No.
Budget
Total (h/month)
Remark
European Commission (TRANSFORM Program) Amsterdam Investment Fund Energy loan Involved organizations
n/a
No specific data given
n/a n/a n/a
No specific data given No specific data given No specific data given
10,000 180,000
Based on the source Based on the source
6 190,000
Interpreted from the source
Income 1 2 3 4 Total
Outcome 1 2
Exploration of project ideas Energy Atlas development Human resources (majority of cost) Technology G
G
Total
Source: Data from Boogert, G., Mantel, B., Mollay, U., & Schremmer, C. (2015). TRANSFORM synthesis report: Final version. Belgium.
budget efficiently, which could be one of the reasons why this project finished on time and with good quality. The long-term economic viability of the project was secured by Energy Fund, an institution that was established in 2015 after the publication of the Energy Atlas (Amsterdam Municipality, 2015).
6.3.6 Quality Several general standards were used for the Energy Atlas project, including for the data gathering, analysis, and visualization. Data gathering was based on an agreement between the municipality and the public utility providers and housing corporations. The data had to meet specific legal requirements from each party, that is, user data privacy and security, and the location of critical infrastructure. The data analysis had to be in line with the project aims, and the information could therefore only be used for providing the baseline, prospects, and simulation of the energy use of Amsterdam. The data visualization had to be user-friendly. The project leader said that no specific standards had to be taken into account when the stakeholders developed the project, such as contract penalties or warranty periods.
6.3.7 Risks The project team had to overcome several risks, such as data privacy and security. The municipality decided to only use general energy data, because publishing
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individual customer data from public utility providers is too sensitive. An agreement was also made for the location of the critical infrastructure, in which they decided to publish only the energy infrastructure without its critical points (van Winden et al., 2016).
6.3.8 Procurement The Energy Atlas was built using a public private partnership agreement. The European Commission provided the initial funds for the project through the “TRANSFORM” program, enabling the municipality to work with Liander to create a prototype of the Energy Atlas as a tool to present to other stakeholders. The prototype successfully helped the municipality to encourage other public utility providers and housing corporations to share their data. The published Energy Atlas can now be used to create business plans for small open innovation activities targeting energy use.
6.3.9 Discussion The overview presented in Fig. 6.10 provides a clearer insight into the development of the Energy Atlas project, one of the smart city projects in ASC. As Boogert, Mantel, Mollay, and Schremmer (2015) outlined, this project provided several key insights into such projects: 1. Stakeholder management was necessary for the implementation of the project. It was necessary for the municipality to encourage the public utility providers and housing corporations to share their energy data by highlighting the benefits to them. In this phase the role of ASC is crucial for connecting all partners and facilitating their roles during the project development. 2. Collaboration between the municipality, industry, and research institutions was fundamental for successful research during the project development. The municipality has to convince the stakeholders to take part and therefore requires scientific research materials that can be presented to the stakeholders.
Figure 6.10 Overview of the development of the Energy Atlas project.
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3. A prototype of the Energy Atlas was helpful to share the project idea. The prototype became a tool for convincing stakeholders, especially in terms of their decision to make a long-term investment in the project by freely sharing their data. 4. The project is still focused on the energy use, prospects, and networks at a residential/ building scale, so innovative solutions may only emerge at that scale. 5. The data in the Energy Atlas are static and require ongoing updating. ASC therefore plays a crucial role in ensuring that the energy data are kept updated by the stakeholders in the future.
Overall, the project met its initial objective of publishing energy data as a tool for users to quickly develop innovative energy solutions. Another achieved objective was to gather energy data from several different providers in the city. This successful cooperation between the municipality and the stakeholders was established with the help of ASC, who makes connections between the actors, and facilitated their collaboration. As the Energy Atlas is an open-data map, no feedback has currently been recorded from its end users. The project leader clarified that no publication or media outlet has reflected on the use of the Energy Atlas; however, an organization based on a public private people partnership between various parties in SouthEast Amsterdam, ZO Circular, has demonstrated the benefit of the Energy Atlas (Boogert et al., 2015). They used the data and tools from the Energy Atlas to guide interventions regarding heat usage and the implementation of solar projects in their district, which helped them to build a strategic plan for a more sustainable SouthEast Amsterdam. This reveals that the Energy Atlas has helped its users in decision-making processes and in their development of business strategies based on energy transition. As the Energy Atlas is the only freely accessible system providing real energy usage data, it may attract the attention of parties all over the world (Boogert et al., 2015). The reliability and usability of its data mean the Energy Atlas could be used to attract investments for energy transitions and define new challenges for innovation by enabling people to make innovative business decisions to cope with energy challenges. This project is based on the collaboration and a MoU between European cities. Amsterdam can use this coalition to increase the competitiveness of Energy Atlas usage at the regional scale, which is even being scaled up toward the national level (the Netherlands). This project can therefore successfully compete in the international smart city competition, enabling more cities all over the world to learn from Amsterdam. In an official document containing frequently asked questions, ASC (2017) stated that it is an innovative organization for future-proof city development, which acts by identifying and connecting parties and accelerating breakthrough ideas to address city challenges. They facilitate the innovation process based on the collaboration of a public private people partnership, providing an actor network for the stakeholders. The collaborative principle of ASC based on public private partnerships was implemented well in the development of the Energy Atlas project, as highlighted by the collaboration between the municipality and the private
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stakeholders who possess the energy data. The public body (the municipality) acted as an initiator and coordinator for the project, helping the private parties (particularly the public utility providers and housing corporations) to realize the benefit of sharing their data and act as providers for the project. ASC fulfilled its claim of being a facilitator for stakeholders to collaborate and develop innovations. They helped the municipality to connect with its key partner, Liander, and enabled them to accelerate the development of the Energy Atlas; however, the citizens of Amsterdam were not represented well during the process. This was accepted because the development of the project did not require any feedback or assistance from individuals. Now that the Energy Atlas has been published, the people of Amsterdam can contribute by providing feedback to the municipality regarding its data and tools. We can therefore conclude that ASC successfully operationalized their working concept.
6.4
Conclusions
ASC reports at least four lessons learnt from the implementation of the Energy Atlas project. (1) A smart city is not only about developing an advanced technological solution but also the empowerment of actors in the city to innovate in response to recent city challenges. (2) Technology is only one tool for tackling city challenges. The Energy Atlas, as an innovative technology, is a medium to enable people to create and adapt business ideas to contribute to tackling energy challenges. (3) To innovate, actors need to collaborate based on an agreement and trust each other. (4) A partnership organization such as ASC is required for a smart city to connect the relevant actors, facilitate cocreation processes, and accelerate innovations. Summing up the lesson learnt, ASC has taught us that technology is not the end goal of a smart city but only one of the tools needed to achieve the goals. The essential “smart” ideas come from the people in the city, who create innovative solutions to cope with contemporary city challenges and effectively manage them. An innovative solution involves not only technology but also nontechnological advances, such as a new community system or different ways of financing. From ASC, we also learned that a collaborative ecosystem is important for facilitating innovation. It should be stressed that there is a wide range of projects across the ASC themes, all with different purposes, setups, and impacts. Some of them are already successful, while others are still in the development phase. The Energy Atlas is a very successful example, and its usability and possibilities have begun to be translated to other fields of innovation within ASC. The collaboration within the Energy Atlas project is more between organizations and businesses (public private) than a partnership with the citizens themselves; however, which would likely not be possible for some of the other smart city projects. In the future, it seems likely that ASC will adjust their role and focus to not only connect partners in a collaborative way
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but also to build an effective measurement of impact and develop processes for scaling up successfully implemented smart city projects. The Energy Atlas project almost failed to encourage stakeholders to share their energy data but was able to continue because the “TRANSFORM” program from the European Commission strengthened the position of the Amsterdam Municipality to involve energy stakeholders. This shows that political and financial commitments from higher levels of government will help smart city projects to run well. The EU trigger and institutional backup have been demonstrated to be important aspects in the implementation of smart city projects. All actors focusing on the smart city concept, such as governments, private organizations, and scholars, need to be aware that a smart city must be driven by people as well as technology in order to cope with contemporary city challenges. Smart cities trigger an innovative and collaborative ecosystem; therefore, future research should focus more on the innovation process and actor engagement in these projects.
6.5
Remarks
Amsterdam Smart City Alliander Liander Nederlandse Organisatie voor Toegepast Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek Amsterdam Economic Board Amsterdam Arena KPN PostNL Arcadis Engie Amsterdam University of Applied Science Waag Society Pakhuis De Zwijger
https://amsterdamsmartcity.com/ https://www.alliander.com/ https://www.liander.nl https://www.tno.nl
https://www.amsterdameconomicboard.com https://www.johancruijffarena.nl/home-1.htm https://www.kpn.com https://www.postnl.nl https://www.arcadis.com https://www.engie.nl http://www.amsterdamuas.com/ https://waag.org https://dezwijger.nl
About the authors Zulfikar Dinar Wahidayat Putra studied Urban Environmental Management with a specialization in Land Use Planning at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. He is an urban planner, specializing in smart city and innovation systems. His thesis concerned the interaction between smart city projects as local initiatives and government environmental policies, with a focus on Amsterdam. He was a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Innovation Officer in the United Nations for Development Program in Indonesia before taking on a new role as a research
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assistant in the Urban and Regional Planning Study Program at Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. He also has experience with climate action research, gained by participating in the Venlo Circular Challenge held by Sustainable Motion Netherlands, as well as from a summer school called “Journey” organized by Climate-KIC, European Institute of Innovation and Technology, European Union. He is an experienced urban planner and works on urban and regional planning, mapping, urban design, innovation systems, and SDG projects in consultancy firms and in the United Nations agency in Indonesia. For further correspondence, make contact via [email protected]. Wim van der Knaap studied Landscape engineering at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and is now an assistant professor in the university’s Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning Group, specializing in planning aspects for urban/rural fringe developments, especially in the metropolitan area. He thereby focuses on planning processes around contemporary issues such as the impacts of climate change and water-related topics. His main interests are in the participation processes related to the technological developments and impacts related to these planning processes, and he has participated in several projects across Europe to study rural/urban developments and their accompanying issues. For further correspondence, make contact via [email protected].
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Further reading Athey, G., Nathan, M., Webber, C., & Mahroum, S. (2008). Innovation and the city. Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice, 10(2), 156 169.