Today half of the world’s population lives in cities. Urbanization is presenting us with new challenges, and that’s where the concept Sustainable City comes into the picture. At E.ON we have a decade of experience from developing sustainable cities and districts. Our first example was the Västra Hamnen district in Malmö, an example that has attracted a lot of attention from all over the world.

In Västra Hamnen E.ON has contributed to the construction of an attractive city district that is entirely self-sufficient with renewable energy from water, wind, sun and compostable waste.

The basic concept is that Västra Hamnen’s energy should be generated by commercially accessible technology.

• The wind power plant is the backbone of the district’s energy system. The plant is near enough to be connected to Västra Hamnen, but at the same time sufficiently far away to ensure that it does not disturb anyone.
• Solar cells converts solar rays directly into electrical energy.
• Aquifers are used to store the summer’s warm sea water in the bedrock to use in the winter as district heating for residential housing. In the winter cool sea water is stored to be used as district cooling in the summer.
• 2,600 square meters of solar collectors connected to the district heating network also contributes to heat and hot water. Total annual heat production is 700,000 kWh, equivalent to about 10 percent of the heating and hot water used in the area.
• Domestic waste is beeing converted to biogas, which is fed into Malmö’s natural gas network.

A new way of thinking

As producers and consumers of energy, we have a shared responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint and create the sustainable city. The activities in Västra Hamnen have shown that it is possible to create functioning systems for wise living and smart property management.

Read more about Västra Hamnen and watch our video under Related Media.