Lighthouse city: Barcelona
A website about the GrowSmarter project is also available in Spanish on the BCN site, click here.
Background
Voted European Capital of Innovation 2014, Barcelona is a vast metropolitan hub with a long tradition of industry and entrepreneurship. Barcelona City Council encourages strategic initiatives aimed at generating international collaboration and promoting a global and forward-looking vision to businesses and public bodies, as well as scientific and technological centres.
Barcelona’s Smart City program began over thirty years ago when the city installed fibre optic cables to connect two municipal buildings. Currently, the City Council is using public-private partnerships to encourage innovation in areas such as transport, shopping, street lighting and environmental monitoring. Barcelona has been transformed into an urban laboratory, piloting projects and services that make the city more open, efficient and friendly.
The innovation zone known as 22nd District were chosen for Barcelona's implementation of the smart solutions. This multi-purpose area mixes residential, industrial and academic buildings in a lively, vibrant area bordering the Mediterranean sea.
Which smart solutions did we implement?
Solutions implemented in the 22nd District included introducing electric vehicles and installing charging infrastructure, refurbishing current buildings to create ‘zero energy’ blocks and installing district heating and cooling.
Low Energy District - solutions 1-4
1. Efficient and smart climate shell refurbishment
- Factsheet 1: Energy efficient refurbishment of social housing
- Factsheet 2: Energy efficient refurbishment of public tertiary buildings
- Factsheet 3: Energy efficient refurbishment of private residential buildings
- Factsheet 4: Energy efficient refurbishment of private tertiary buildings
3. Smart energy-saving tenants
4. Smart electricity management
Integrated Infrastructure - solutions 5-8
1. Smart street lighting
- Factsheet 20: Smart multifunctional tower
- Factsheet 23: Smart meter information analysis and actuators
6. Waste heat recovery
8. Big data management
Sustainable Urban Mobility - solutions 9-12
9. Sustainable delivery
10. Smart traffic management
11. Alternative fuel driven vehicles
12. Smart mobility solutions
Blog updates from Barcelona
Gonzalo Cabezas led the implementation of the 12 solutions in 22nd District, and shared regular updates from the Barcelona site.
What 'smart' looks like in Barcelona?
Check out what Barcelona was up to in this short and informative video!