Accelerate poSitive Clean ENergy Districts

"ASCEND (Accelerate positive Clean Energy Districts) seeks to accelerate the implementation of positive, clean energy districts (PCED) for cities’ transition toward climate neutrality and social justice across Europe. ASCEND will:

• Deliver two inclusive, affordable PCEDs in Lyon and Munich;
• Successfully ""bootstrap"" implementation of PCEDs in the Multiplier Cities of Alba Iulia (RO), Budapest (HU), Charleroi (BE), Prague (CZ), Porto (PT), Stockholm (SE);
• Scale-up solution packages for a large community of cities and investors across Europe;
• Disseminate our results widely to the smart cities community.

Our overarching goals are to i) Make cities healthier, inclusive and climate-neutral; ii) Speed up and scale up the deployment of cost-effective PCEDs solution packages.

“Getting PCEDs done” across Europe entails the following actions for ASCEND:

First, large-scale demonstrations in Lighthouse Cities (LHCs), using existing knowledge built by generation of Smart Cities Projects, offering well-proven and cost-effective solutions packages, scalable by design to cities across Europe.

Second, developing our solutions packages across the entire life of the district: from design to implementation and maintenance, performances must be maintained and increased thanks to an urban orchestrator aiming to coordinate the ecosystem in the long run.

Third, creating a PCEDs replication wave during ASCEND in our eight partnering cities by iterating between the development of solutions packages and deployment in LHCs and Multiplier cities (MCs) during the project and not after. MCs will achieve impact by bootstrapping their PCEDs during the project.

Finally, triggering a PCED wave through outcome-driven collaboration with EC initiatives, such as Climate-Neutral and Smart City Mission, Covenant of Mayor, Smart Cities Marketplace, Scalable cities but also with the deployment of City Alliances in the eight cities, targeting small cities, not used to European projects."