The City as a Lab 2021 event on modern sustainable cities, mobility and a vision for the urban future
The second City as a Lab event took place online at the beginning of June: The Mobility 2021 event took place online and attracted 1,500 participants from 39 countries. Petrol was also present at the event. They presented Petrol’s vision of a sustainable and energy-efficient city, with a focus on smart office buildings and e-mobility.
The energy transition is high on the agenda of many events, as regulatory pressures in this area are very strong. The EU has already set a target of carbon neutrality by 2050, and the informal consensus on the EU draft climate law has reached provisional agreement on a new target of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. These targets are to be achieved through greater energy efficiency, better energy management and a higher share of zero- or lower-emission sources in the energy mix.
Petrol sees energy efficiency as a necessary building block of a smart city, which was presented in the opening session of the City as a Lab 2021 event. Andrej Bergant, Executive Director for Energy and Environmental Systems at Petrol, pointed out that it can be improved through the city’s infrastructure, through efficient energy management, renewable energy, sustainable mobility and energy efficiency. Within the “energy infrastructure”, special emphasis is placed on energy efficient buildings. Buildings consume 40% of energy and account for 35% of CO2 emissions.
“Through our eyes, sustainable office buildings are building the modern smart city”, said Evald Kranjčevič, Director of Energy Sales and Solutions at Petrol, at a roundtable on smart cities. He highlighted some of the projects where they have helped develop new energy systems that include renewable energy sources, such as Mega M, Squashland, farms and public building renovation projects (Brežice, Zlato polje, Ljubljana, etc.)
The participation was rounded off with a panel discussion on e-mobility, where they presented their vision for the development of modern mobility services and how e-mobility is an indispensable element of a sustainable and modern smart city. Mobility is increasingly emerging as a service, and this trend is accelerating. At the same time, legislation is steering us very clearly in the direction of e-mobility. The electrification of mobility, at least in part, is a good step towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is something that we are working on intensively at Petrol.