SolarAction - Next steps

AI Quick Summary

We are still trying to accelerate the installation of PV. Our vision is to build 1 m2 of PV per citizen in the canton of Zurich until summer 2024. Our target group is the municipalities of the canton of Zurich. We want to prepare new offers for next year: 1) With TopRoof we want to address the top 10 roofs per municipality. 2) We have the opportunity to engage in an HSLU project as a participant and multiplier (Municipal) and we want to bring the experiences of an HSLU project to Zurich (QUBE). Project idea description- What problem would you like to solve?We want to accelerate the transition to a net zero society by building more PV for renewable energy. We have good technology. We have enough roofs. We have the specialist to put PV onto the roofs. We are running out of time. Why is Switzerland so slow in building PV solutions? No time to be frustrated, let's start changing the habit! Our vision: to build an additional 1 m2 PV per citizen of the canton Zurich until summer 2024! That equals a total of 1.5 Mio m2 PV.- Who are the customers and how will they profit from a solution?The key for us are municipalities which can strive for a bigger solution context than a single house owner. Another customer are institutional house owners as they own many buildings - but we haven't been able to acquire a pilot customer yet.SolarAction is a kind of orchestrator to help municipalities find the right partners to build more PV. SolarAction is a communicator that makes what has already been done visible and thus shows what is possible now. We are on the lookout for good ideas, the ones that have been tried before or have been succesfuly implemented and bring them to the canton of Zurich, find a neighbourhood or municipality who likes the idea or model and wants to try it as well. We connect the municipalities to share their experiences.- How does your project idea affect energy savings or CO2 emissions?The more PV is used for energy production the less carcoal or atom energy is needed, i.e. the more CO2 equivalents can be reduced. We expect to reduce the CO2 equivlants by 7540 tons per year from 2024 on.Current status and previous activities- What has been tried before? What was not successful? What have you learned?As mentioned we learned that it is hard to get into a dialogue with institutional house owners. The strong focus on profitability and the high degree of professionality seems to give no room for discussion.Therefore, we shifted our focus to the municipalities as here we could start a dialogue, see some of their needs and help them with additional manpower, ideas or by introducing potential partners.We have learned that the regional PV campaign is very welcomed by the municipalities but troubles the craftsmen: due to a increasing demand first bottlenecks become visible: expertise / knowhow and some materials run out of stock. We are in contact with Swissolar how they approach this bottlenecks and how we could help.We started a webinar for municipalities last year and had one this year, each with a different topic (1. regional PV campaign in SG, 2. Bürgerbeteiligungsmodelle). This format as an opportunity for information and sharing experiences has good feedback, we will continue the serie.The broad partner network that we established so far is crucial for the reliability and feasability of our campaign.We have learned that our focus on municipalites is not attractive to our typical company sponsors, we have to find new ways. As we are currently operating in one canton only we have to broaden our view and cooperation to ask for federal funding.Resources needed- What are your planned work packages?Last year we advertised a regional PV campaign, this year we have a pilot region for the campaign with 19 municipalities, a huge project that will last almost the whole year.In parallel we plan new elements for next year and need some funding therefore:-> A new offering "TopRoof" that we came across in a meeting with a mayor who tried this idea in his municipality. It focuses on the top 10 roofs for a photovoltaic solution and work with them directly. While the current pilot of a regional PV compaign focuses on private house owners (many small roofs) this new one explicity addresses big roofs that might be combind with "Bürgerbeteiligung" models to finance them.-> Taking part in "Municipal", an HSLU project: this project also focuses on municipalities and one of the two subjects is PV. We want to share our experiences in this project and connect to municipalities in other cantons and co-create and even cooperate with them-> "Think bigger" is the idea behind "QUBE", another HSLU project which activates the local house owners for a local "Energieverbund" to take over the responsibility and take care for a net zero community. We want to share the learnings and find a "Gemeinde" or "Stadtquartier" in the canton of Zurich to do the next step in the QUBE project. The prepartation shall take place in 2022. This projects fits extremely well to our main idea to work with municipalities.- How can the Energy Lab help you?Our current main challenge is funding to pay our staff to do good work.Thanks to last year's Energy Lab we built up some connection to the HSLU in addition to our connections to zhaw. We want to some funding of Energy Lab to help us intensify the cooperation with academia. This coopertions might hopefully lead to an Innosuisse or BFE funding.

Project Idea Metadata

Project Idea Name: SolarAction - Next steps
Date: 3/10/2022 9:48:26 AM
Administrators:
- Ina Paschen

Project Idea Description

Project idea description

- What problem would you like to solve?

We want to accelerate the transition to a net zero society by building more PV for renewable energy. We have good technology. We have enough roofs. We have the specialist to put PV onto the roofs. We are running out of time. Why is Switzerland so slow in building PV solutions? No time to be frustrated, let's start changing the habit! Our vision: to build an additional 1 m2 PV per citizen of the canton Zurich until summer 2024! That equals a total of 1.5 Mio m2 PV.

- Who are the customers and how will they profit from a solution?

The key for us are municipalities which can strive for a bigger solution context than a single house owner. Another customer are institutional house owners as they own many buildings - but we haven't been able to acquire a pilot customer yet.

SolarAction is a kind of orchestrator to help municipalities find the right partners to build more PV. SolarAction is a communicator that makes what has already been done visible and thus shows what is possible now. We are on the lookout for good ideas, the ones that have been tried before or have been succesfuly implemented and bring them to the canton of Zurich, find a neighbourhood or municipality who likes the idea or model and wants to try it as well. We connect the municipalities to share their experiences.

- How does your project idea affect energy savings or CO2 emissions?

The more PV is used for energy production the less carcoal or atom energy is needed, i.e. the more CO2 equivalents can be reduced. We expect to reduce the CO2 equivlants by 7540 tons per year from 2024 on.

Current status and previous activities

- What has been tried before? What was not successful? What have you learned?

As mentioned we learned that it is hard to get into a dialogue with institutional house owners. The strong focus on profitability and the high degree of professionality seems to give no room for discussion.

Therefore, we shifted our focus to the municipalities as here we could start a dialogue, see some of their needs and help them with additional manpower, ideas or by introducing potential partners.

We have learned that the regional PV campaign is very welcomed by the municipalities but troubles the craftsmen: due to a increasing demand first bottlenecks become visible: expertise / knowhow and some materials run out of stock. We are in contact with Swissolar how they approach this bottlenecks and how we could help.

We started a webinar for municipalities last year and had one this year, each with a different topic (1. regional PV campaign in SG, 2. Bürgerbeteiligungsmodelle). This format as an opportunity for information and sharing experiences has good feedback, we will continue the serie.

The broad partner network that we established so far is crucial for the reliability and feasability of our campaign.

We have learned that our focus on municipalites is not attractive to our typical company sponsors, we have to find new ways. As we are currently operating in one canton only we have to broaden our view and cooperation to ask for federal funding.

Resources needed

- What are your planned work packages?

Last year we advertised a regional PV campaign, this year we have a pilot region for the campaign with 19 municipalities, a huge project that will last almost the whole year.

In parallel we plan new elements for next year and need some funding therefore:

-> A new offering "TopRoof" that we came across in a meeting with a mayor who tried this idea in his municipality. It focuses on the top 10 roofs for a photovoltaic solution and work with them directly. While the current pilot of a regional PV compaign focuses on private house owners (many small roofs) this new one explicity addresses big roofs that might be combind with "Bürgerbeteiligung" models to finance them.

-> Taking part in "Municipal", an HSLU project: this project also focuses on municipalities and one of the two subjects is PV. We want to share our experiences in this project and connect to municipalities in other cantons and co-create and even cooperate with them

-> "Think bigger" is the idea behind "QUBE", another HSLU project which activates the local house owners for a local "Energieverbund" to take over the responsibility and take care for a net zero community. We want to share the learnings and find a "Gemeinde" or "Stadtquartier" in the canton of Zurich to do the next step in the QUBE project. The prepartation shall take place in 2022. This projects fits extremely well to our main idea to work with municipalities.

- How can the Energy Lab help you?

Our current main challenge is funding to pay our staff to do good work.

Thanks to last year's Energy Lab we built up some connection to the HSLU in addition to our connections to zhaw. We want to some funding of Energy Lab to help us intensify the cooperation with academia. This coopertions might hopefully lead to an Innosuisse or BFE funding.