The city of Arts and Sciences

Its 2020 Smart City strategy envisages to reduce urban emissions by 40% by 2030.

Valencia is a coastal town located in the midst of a large metropolitan area. With more than one million and a half inhabitants, it is currently Spain’s third most populated town. The current City Hall Government is decidedly committed to innovation and sustainability as the basis of a new model of global social development that respects both people and the environment.

In order to achieve these goals, several strategies, which are aligned with European objectives were launched during the last years. They are being improved by means of targeting more ambitious results in terms of urban and social innovation, both of which allowed Valencia to become a European frontrunner for Smart Cities and sustainable development.

Under the MAtchUp program, Valencia will develop a total of 52 innovative actions in regard to energy, mobility and ICT in various neighbourhoods.

The disctrict: Poblats Maritims

The district chosen for the project pilot is the coastal district of Valencia, called Poblats Maritims, a traditional maritime fishermen district with a strong identity character. The district has been the subject of urban aggression and its population has been peacefully resisting against dispossession. As the district has acquired global visibility, its needs to repair and solve the deteriorate situation.

Within MAtchUP the City of Valencia will focus on:

  • renovating and constructing old and new buildings in the district,
  • improving the sustainable mobility across the whole city (e-vehicles, charging points and multimodality hubs)
  • building a dedicated platform for citizens to improve the ICT services

Valencia in a glance

Population: 787.266
Area: 134,6 km²
Associations: SEAP from 2009. Committed to achieve the SECAP
Initiatives&strategies: Valencia has delivered its Adaptation plan to climate change and has developed the Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP)

Energy solutions

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The biggest demand of the district is due to heating. The most common heating generation systems in the district are based on natural gas. On the other hand, the electricity consumption is high and, mostly, owing to the cooling systems.

The main interventions in MAtchUP are focused on reducing the demand and covering both electricity and the domestic hot water consumption through renewable energy systems.

Mobility solutions

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Valencia already offers multiple ways, having deployed tram, underground and buses, mainly, as public transportation services. Nevertheless, there is still a gap with regard to the CO2 emissions because the electro-mobility is not fully deployed.

That is why Valencia is committed along the next years to deploy a full public transportation fleet based on sustainable mobility.

In this sense, Valencia will take advantage of MAtchUP project to increase the impact in the city. Moreover, it is foreseen to increase the use of the public transport and reduce the use of private vehicle.

Ict solutions

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Valencia has a global platform for smart city management, which is the main element of Valencia Smart City Strategy. This platform gathers the information of all the municipal services (following the integral vision of a smart city) and provides a compilation of key indicators for city management to be offered transparently to citizens and developers, as well as municipal managers to improve the efficiency in their daily activity.

The existing platform will be adapted and extended with further integration that can help the city to improve its local services.

Citizens solutions

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The city of Valencia believes that the citizen participation in urban policy-making is essential for becoming a Smart City: the urban transformation of city passes thorough the involvement and the endorsement of its citizens.

Having this in mind, the city of Valencia is planning to have a citizen-centric approach with several actions and activities expressly dedicated to its inhabitants to raise awareness and acceptance.

Programs for social and local entrepreneurs, participation, education and co-creation activities addressed to citizens, business opportunities for the distric inhabitants, local toolkit for the improvement of renewable energies are only few of the numerous activities that the city is planning to organise.