The town of Lienz is relying on its work with the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) when it comes to developing its climate neutrality roadmap. The energy balance shows the details of where the CO2 emissions arise and where energy savings are possible. Based on this, the town is drawing up its scenario for the future.
The climate neutrality roadmap was based on an energy and CO2 balance by sector and energy carrier for 2023, as well as a collection of socio-economic and technological data from the town of Lienz.
“We received an excellent qualitative analysis and therefore for the first time detailed figures that we are able to build upon,” says Jasmina Steiner from the Location Development, Economy & Marketing Department of the town of Lienz.
Using the AIT model MAED-City, they were able to work out various scenarios for the town’s future development. In addition to the reconstructed model for 2023, the experts at the AIT also created a business-as-usual model and a climate neutrality scenario up to 2040. Based on these, the key action areas and steps to be implemented in achieving climate neutrality were then defined. “We see which measure has the greatest effect and what the costs are, i.e. what matches our budget. That`s where we start and we rank the projects in this order”, explains Steiner. The plan is that implementation of the measures will be accompanied by a KPI-based monitoring concept in future in order to support tracking for the climate neutrality being targeted.
Attractive town centre
The mobility transformation is a key issue, as Lienz is a central hub for the entire region given its role as administrative centre of the Lienz district. “We developed a local pedestrian traffic concept in order to increase active mobility and therefore quality of life in the town centre, and also redesigned around two-thirds of the town centre in recent years as an area that gives priority to pedestrians”, reports the project manager.
Expanding infrastructure
Expanding the broadband infrastructure is an important prerequisite for the sustainable transformation process in Lienz and the entire region. All of the town’s public buildings have had broadband connections since 2017, giving them the infrastructure they need e.g. to use smart energy technologies. Lienz also works with the surrounding municipalities of Planning Association 36 (Lienzer Talboden). The infrastructure has also been expanded across this area in recent years here. For example, there are plans for real-time energy monitoring to be used in future in order to identify and exploit potential savings in public buildings.
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