Sun City - Testbed for photovoltaics in an urban environment

Purpose and goal

The purpose of this project was to establish a testbed and begin consolidating a group of stakeholders and business models for future cooperation. Using the generated data from the photovoltaics, the purpose was also to begin carrying out research in various areas and to investigate the need for services like visualization, webbased maps, performance survey and data collection. All of these areas have been investigated and there are good reasons to continue this work and establish the testbed as a meeting point for the stakeholders, as the Sweden is lacking such.

Results and expected effects

Since the market for photovoltaic products and services is weak, there is a need for a public actor like the City of Stockholm to guarantee long term stability for a testbed, until other actors are ready to take over and the marked is established and stabilized. The idea is that the testbed will function the same way the Energy Center in the City of Stockholm does (and where the project management is): a hub and an arena for the stakeholders. The testbed can best be characterized as an arena where suppliers, customers and decision makers meet and become aware of market needs.

Approach and implementation

The prerequisites for a developped service market appear advantageous. It seems uncertain if the conditions are sufficient for developping innovations of products as the Swedish market is weak and there is a huge lead internationally. The demand for some services is already in place, for instance data transmission that fulfil the demands of Swedish Electricity Certificates, but few or none can meet those demands. The research and developement that is carried out in the project is well needed and put into practice matching the market och is complementary to other basic research.