Together with the international real estate group Lendlease, E.ON is installing the sustainable energy supply for a new and innovative urban district on the former Expo site in Milan. The signing of a 25-year joint venture was announced. The joint project lays the foundation for supplying 565,000 square metres of the site called “MIND” with 41 Gigawatt hours per year of cooling and 29 Gigawatt hours per year of heating in one grid.
The energy required for this comes 100 percent from renewable sources like green electricity, channel water, well water and the ambient air. Furthermore, all used energy is recycled intelligently and efficiently. This makes the Milan district one of the largest neighbourhoods in Europe to be supplied with energy in such a sustainable way. The aim of “MIND” is to create a unique place for scientific, economic, social and cultural innovation. To this end, a mixed-use of the site is planned with businesses, residential, commercial and recreational areas as well as various service providers. The Joint Venture is investing a mid-double-digit million euro amount in the “Milano District Innovation” project.
“Cities and industrial agglomerations cause the largest share of CO2 emissions in Europe and thus occupy a key position on the way to an emission-free energy landscape of the future. Innovative solutions like “MIND” are needed to supply entire metropolises with sustainable energy. The project is an important milestone; we have already implemented or are planning similar solutions in Germany and other countries in Europe”, says Patrick Lammers, who as COO at E.ON is responsible for customer solutions.
The energy concept used at “MIND” is based on the ectogrid™ system developed by E.ON, which already supplies the Medicon Village in Lund, southern Sweden, with sustainable heating and cooling. ectogrid™ is a closed grid with low temperatures where heat pumps and cooling machines in every building adjust the temperature according to demand. In this process, each building sends excess heating or cooling to other buildings, depending on their needs. Through sharing, balancing, and storing energy in rotation, ectogrid™ efficiently uses all available energy flows before adding new energy. This drastically reduces energy consumption – and in turn costs and environmental impact. E.ON is also using the ectogrid™ concept in other projects, such as the innovative urban development in the Transurban.NRW real laboratory.
As an important part of E.ON’s business, Energy Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) is best positioned to become the change agent for the sustainability transition. As a long-term energy partner for cities, municipalities, real estate and industrial customers, EIS offers technical infrastructure solutions that improve the carbon footprint of the customers. Core offerings are generation plants for large industrial customers and manufacturing businesses, district heating and cooling networks, neighbourhood solutions and industrial/commercial customer solutions as well as energy efficiency products and services. In total, EIS has over 1.5 million customers with around 4,000 employees and approximately 4,100 plants producing 19 terawatt-hours of heating, cooling and steam and 12 terawatt-hours of electricity.
