Climate resilience through efficient urban infrastructure

How can we strengthen the resilience of vital infrastructures like water and energy in cities in relation to climate change? Which technical potentials do the infrastructure systems currently have and what are social components for making them more flexible? With which strategies and measures can these potentials be realized? The BMBF project "Flexible Utility - Using socio-technical flexibility for more climate resilience and efficiency in urban infrastructure" or "Flexitility” seeks answers to these questions.

Identifying socio-technical flexibility approaches ...

The purpose of Flexitility is to help actors at a local level to respond appropriately to the risks of climate change in the future, thereby increasing their resilience. For this reason, it will be examined how flexibility in the use of infrastructural systems can be used to reduce particularly high, short-term demand for services and to support climate-resilient urban development. It explores the technical potential of a flexible supply, but also the options of a flexible consumption of resources among consumers.

In addition to inter 3 as the project coordinator, the Energieavantgarde Anhalt e.V., the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy Systems, and co2online gGmbH belong to the consortium. The city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen with the Stadtentwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, the Herzberger Wasser- und Abwasserzweckverband, the Dessauer Versorgungs und Verkehrsgesellschaft mbH, the Stadtwerke Bitterfeld-Wolfen GmbH and the Köthen Energie GmbH are also involved in the project.

... and testing them in the living lab

Based on real conditions, Flexitility analyzes and experiments how the transformation of the supply and disposal system might look like. An important point here is the active participation of citizens as well as the involvement of cities and infrastructure managers, especially in the region of Anhalt. In this "living lab Anhalt", it is exemplarily tested how flexibilizations can take place. From this, action knowledge can be deduced that can serve as a guide for science and politics in the future.

inter 3 coordinates the project network

inter 3 is significantly involved in several sub-goals of Flexitility. Suitable strategies to increase the climate resilience by increasing the potential for flexibility are to be derived from the results of the living lab. These strategies are analyzed in terms of their costs and benefits and evaluated for their profitability. In addition, the establishment of regional innovation management structures is planned. They monitor the progress of work and formulate goals that promote the development of strategies. Furthermore, inter 3 is responsible for the communication of these processes and is responsible for the coordination of the project consortium.

The project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 2019 to 2022 as part of the "Implementation of the Future City Flagship Initiative" and managed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). An initial definition phase took place in April 2017 for around a year.