Circular resources, energy and buildings
Stockholm Royal Seaport will be a fossil-free district with low resource use and minimal environmental and climate impact.
To reduce energy use, all new buildings are designed according to passive house requirements with well-insulated building envelopes and energy-efficient fittings and appliances. Furthermore, renewable energy should be generated locally.
At Stockholm Royal Seaport, energy calculations are submitted for all phases of building projects. The review of the first phase Norra 2, after two years of occupancy, showed that energy performance is 26 per cent lower than the applicable Swedish building code regulations and means that buildings in the area meet the zero-energy directive.
To study the feasibility of a plus energy building, a land allocation competition was held in 2014 where the tenants moved in 2019.
Most buildings are connected to the district heating system with a combined-heat and power plant in the area, Värtaverket, one of the largest bio-CHP plants in Europe. The utility works actively by replacing fossil fuels with bio-based fuels. To contribute with fossil-free energy, solar energy or solar heat is produced on all buildings.
During the design and construction phases, a substantial proportion of climate impact depends on the materials used. All developers shall at an early stage make climate calculations for the buildings. Climate calculations for public open spaces are carried out and knowledge building is ongoing.
Stockholm Royal Seaport: Energy and digitalisation
To increase awareness on energy use R&D projects on digitalisation have been implemented to test how data can be used for behavioral change and optimization of energy flows in the larger system.
The Stockholm Royal Seaport development project is also testing and preparing to use the cities central platform for IoT and sharing of data, this within the project Connected Stockholm Royal Seaport. Enhanced data collection and IoT provides information about the district and opportunities to follow up on targets and continuously optimize activities and planning. Data where tests are now ongoing include energy and water usage of buildings, travel patterns of people living in the area and more.
Circular resources
Stockholm Royal Seaport will be a fossil-free district with low resource use and minimal environmental and climate impact. Infrastructure is being developed integrating energy, water supply, waste water, and transport systems.
The waste collection systems for households and businesses are designed to separate recyclable and reusable materials, organic waste and residual waste. The system is based on; waste grinder for organic waste, vacuum waste collection system for plastic, newspaper and residual waste, recycling rooms for other waste streams, a mobile reuse station, Pop-Up Reuse – which began as an innovation competition within the Stockholm Royal Seaport project – and an automated station for hazardous waste. This reduces heavy vehicle traffic and makes it easier to sort waste and leads to zero waste to landfill.
To further improve management of wastewater and source-separated wastewater systems, (black- and greywater) will be introduced.
During the construction phase, local soil remediation and reuse of remediated, excavated materials is prioritized. To increase the reuse of excavated material, the Royal Seaport Project has developed and built a so-called “Mass Consolidation Centre”, where primarily contaminated material is sorted and reused.
To date, more than two million tonnes of excavated materials have been handled on site and almost 800,000 tonnes have been recycled. The mass balance is about 38 per cent the remaining materials cannot be used due to the low structural quality.
Article Published: 08/06/2022 Updated: 16/05/2023