Stardust is a European project aimed at increasing overall energy efficiency, improving the quality of life and stimulating the local economy and emergence of new business models in the participating cities. This is to be achieved by integrating the construction, energy and electric mobility sector through the use of the most advanced information and communication technology, connectivity and the Internet of things - IoT.
This project receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 774094.
Pamplona, Trento (Italy) and Tampere (Finland) are the ‘light tower’ cities of this project. It is coordinated by the Spanish National Renewable Energy Centre - CENER.
Duration of the project
The project began on 1 October 2017 and will last 5 years.
Partners
Stardust has 30 partners (9 cities, public and private companies, technological centres, universities and SMEs) in nine European countries.
The ‘light tower’ cities are Pamplona, Trento (Italy) and Tampere (Finland).
In addition to the city of Pamplona, the Navarrese partners taking part are the National Renewable Energy Centre - CENER (project coordinator), the Government of Navarre, Zabala Innovation Consulting, Bee Planet, the Metropolitan Authority (Mancomunidad de la Comarca de Pamplona) and the public university (UPNA) through the Smart Cities Institute. The telecommunications company SICE completes the Spanish consortium.
Budget
Stardust has a budget of €21 million and will receive a total grant of €18 million from the European Commission, of which approximately €5.5 million will be used for actions in Pamplona, carried out mostly by Navarrese companies.
Actions
Different interconnected pilot actions will be carried out in Pamplona in the framework of the Stardust project. Some of these actions are: the installation of a electric power microgrid with energy generated from renewable sources and the utilization of residual heat, which will supply power for public lighting and electric vehicles; the implementation of the most advanced technology for smart energy management in the homes in the Housing Plan to be developed by Nasuvinsa; the promotion of electric mobility through incentive mechanisms to be implemented by the Government of Navarre; a new public bicycle system; a super-fast charging point for electric vehicles; the establishment of areas with smart public lighting systems, etc.
The other two ‘light tower’ cities will carry out similar actions and work will be performed to exchange knowledge, experiences and results between the cities.
Similarly, a computing platform will be developed onto which a great amount of data generated in the city will be loaded and, once analysed, filtered and sorted, it will be made available for consultation. These data will enable the local authorities to improve the services they offer citizens, provide the citizenry with information with which to improve their quality of life, and supply companies, SMEs and entrepreneurs with a wide range of data which they will be able to monetise by offering new services in the fields of energy, telecommunications, trade, etc.
The generation of employment and economic activity is one of the Stardust project’s key objectives and in order to achieve this, a methodology will be developed to transfer the results of the project to the productive fabric of Pamplona and Navarre. This process will rely on the participation of the company Oficinae Verdi, which will work together with the innovation ecosystem formed by those players and companies concerned, identifying business opportunities and developing business models based on energy efficiency, renewable energy, electric mobility, data management and analysis, and information and communication technology.
