Energy treasure hunt in the district: From local potential to concrete projects

There is a lot of potential for renewable energy projects in Wiedikon that remain untapped today. Many of them are not visible or difficult to access for implementing actors. At the same time, such possibilities are often known to the local population: a classroom is too hot, a basement room is empty or roof areas remain unused. However, this knowledge is hardly recorded and only rarely transferred into concrete projects. What is missing is an easy way to make these indications visible and to connect them with actors who can implement such approaches, such as energy suppliers, developers, start-ups or research institutions that are specifically looking for concrete use cases, for example to demonstrate new technologies. This is exactly where we come in: Together with the local population, we identify and concretize energy projects and make them accessible to implementing actors in a targeted manner. The focus is on an "energy treasure hunt" in the district, which is designed as a citizen science approach. Residents are actively involved in simple and playful formats such as neighbourhood expeditions, workshops and activities with schools and families. The aim is to collect hints, observations and ideas from everyday life and to transfer them into concrete project approaches. At the same time, the participants build up knowledge about energy potentials and turn from observers into active co-creators. For selected projects, we create short project profiles with the most important information on potential, use and the next steps. On this basis, we create a prioritized list of implementation-related projects in the neighborhood, which we specifically communicate to interested stakeholders. This creates a direct connection between the neighbourhood and the implementation. Clues from everyday life are transferred into concrete, follow-up projects that can be taken up by implementing actors. The project thus makes a direct contribution to the implementation of renewable energy solutions in the district.

We are an informal group (e.g. neighborhood group)

We are three sustainability enthusiasts: two scientists living in Wiedikon (Anastasia Stamatiou and Richard Lüchinger, HSLU) and a citizen science enthusiast (Evgenia Tsianou, DISSCO association)

I/we are still looking for comrades-in-arms

Quartier Wiedikon