Testlab Uppland, Sustainable rural energy system in a smartcity setting

Purpose and goal

The purpose of the project was to find out how to permanent and further develop the test environments already built through various projects in Uppsala´s vicinity, such as Vasakronan´s DC power network, IEM in Vaksala eke, saltwater batteries in the Tiunda high school and the internationally (ISGAN) award-winning Smart Grid Project VäxEl. The goal is to bring these together into a common test environment to solve the energy and power-related challenges facing society and energy system operators.

Expected results and effects

Through the project, a constellation of stakeholders has been developed that brings together grid owners, electricity trading companies, society, universities, consulting agencies and technology developers. The foundation has been laid for the creation of a test bed for smart grids and this work is progressing. Based on the experiences of the existing smart grid projects, the power issue has reached Uppsala Climate Protocol and the county boards, where we are now expanding the discussion.

Planned approach and implementation

The project has been organized in dialogue form with interviews both live and digital. These have been very rewarding. STUNS and Sustainable Innovation have been driving the process. Early in the project we were planning for open dialogue discussions in larger groups where we would invite actors broadly, but this was changed in favor of closer dialogues with selected actors which was a good decision since we achieved more in-depth discussions closer networking and important feedback for the continued work.