Zurich

How do we bring smart and climate-friendly energy solutions to the historic urban environment while preserving the cultural-historic values?

Old buildings and new technologies, do they have room for each other? The answer should definitely be yes. Trondheim is a historic city with a large number of cultural monuments and protected buildings. The Municipal Conservation Office makes continuous efforts in preserving these valuable heritages. Through for example the project “Vitalization of Alleys and Courtyards”, they aim to draw people’s attention to some relatively unknown urban areas. Energy efficiency has been an important issue in conservation of historic buildings which the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage (Riksantikvaren), among others, addresses on.

Trondheim is known as the technological capital of Norway, hosting the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and SINTEF, the biggest independent multidisciplinary research institution in Scandinavia. Trondheim has a long tradition of environmental excellence and commitment. The Municipal Plan for Energy and Climate 2017-2030 aims for 80% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (1991 baseline). Our goal is to develop Trondheim into a smart and sustainable city.

Through Climathon Trondheim 2017, we’d like to invite students, researchers, citizens and entrepreneurs to jointly develop ideas, concepts and concrete solutions to improve the energy performance of the historic buildings and quarters, implementing state-of-the-art energy measures without interfering with the cultural-historic features. We need multidisciplinary expertise from areas such as cultural heritage conservation, architecture and design, and energy technology for smart buildings and districts.

Other than energy-saving at building level, we also encourage the participants to look at solutions for energy storage and distribution between buildings. The participants shall put their focus on the Nerbyen quarter of the city center (Midtbyen) in these three topics:

1. Deep energy retrofit of historic buildings/courtyards


2. Local production of renewable energy in historic urban environment


3. System optimisation through energy storage and distribution in historic quarter

The results of Climathon Trondheim 2017 should be relevant for development of new products and services. The winning teams will be prized with business development meetings or incubation (in cooperation with NTNU Accel) and free tickets to Technoport conference 2018.

Partners for Climathon Trondheim 2017: 
Trondheim Municipality, NTNU Sustainability, NTNU Accel, TrønderEnergi, Technoport