WORLD'S NORTHMOST SUSTAINABLE CAPITAL: HELSINKI VIIKKI URBAN http://www.kolumbus.fi/solpros/reports/ISES_ekoviikki.pdf

WORLD'S NORTHMOST SUSTAINABLE CAPITAL: HELSINKI VIIKKI URBAN
ECOLOGICAL AREA AND ITS SOLAR PROJECTS
Abstract - Helsinki (60 oN) is the northernmost capital of the EU. The city has a strong commitment to
enhance sustainability. Viikki suburb in Helsinki is a science and housing area under construction situated
in the outskirts of a EU-Natura region. Here Helsinki City applies ecological and sustainability guidelines
in full urban scale. Started in 1996 the Viikki-Latokartano area will have some 15,000 inhabitants when
finished in 2010. Viikki area represents halving of energy use and environmental impacts compared to
present already strict standards in Finland. The first sustainable city subproject in Viikki is the ecological
building site Ekoviikki (1999-2003). The Ekoviikki site houses 2,000 inhabitants and represents a built
area of 64,000 m2. It includes innovative environmental and energy concepts. Multi-criteria decisionmaking
criteria have been applied to account for different aspects of sustainability in the city, site, and
building planning. A special feature of Ekoviikki is that sustainability is considered as a whole. The solar
access of the whole site is good, renewable energy and energy efficiency is promoted. The largest solar
projects in Finland are realized at Ekoviikki covering more than half of the buildings. 10 solar heating and
2 BIPV systems have been realized in apartment houses. The experiences from 2001-2002 demonstrate
record solar yields up to 400 kWh/m2,y but also large variation among the systems attributed to urban
factors such as load profiles, DH connection and roof inclination. Next generation of buildings in Viikki
will have even stricter criteria for sustainability.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 General
Helsinki (60 oN) is the northernmost capital of the EU
countries. The city has a strong commitment to improve
the environment and to enhance sustainability. It has
received the UN's environmental recognition for its CHP
based extensive district heating utilization. As an
example of city projects is the Ekoviikki ecological
building site. Ekoviikki is a part of the Viikki area which
is the new science suburb of Helsinki and one of the
largest bioscience campus in Europe. The Ekoviikki site
has some 2,000 inhabitants and the construction took
place during 1999 and 2003.
The Ekoviikki site has been subject to extensive
sustainable planning accounting for energy and
environmental improvements enabling integration of
solar energy from the earliest moment and ideas. The
solar projects described in this paper were also integrated
into the planning and construction process.
Ekoviikki is ample of different innovative energy
designs including passive and active solar, photovoltaics,
heat pumps and energy conservation.
The whole Ekoviikki housing area has a built area of
64,000 m2. Almost half of this is subject to solar heating
design. As such this large scale solar integration scheme
is the largest ever realized in Finland and among the ten
largest in Europe.
Figure 1. Ecological building site Ekoviikki in Helsinki.
presented at the ISES 2003 Solar World Conference, June 2003, Gothenburg, Sweden
© SOLPROS
In this paper, we present three solar projects realized in
Ekoviikki:
(1) a large solar heating scheme for multi-store
apartment houses;
(2) an innovative BIPV system for a multi-family house;
(3) a passive sustainable solar house design.
1.2 Ecological criteria in Ekoviikki
In Ekoviikki, special consideration was given to
ecological and sustainable planning principles using the
PIMWAG approach. This method is a multi-criteria
evaluation and decision-making method in which five
major factors effecting the building’s environmental
performance are considered including health and
sustainability. Health issues are accounted for through
IAQ, humidity, noise, access to sun, and living diversity.
Table 1 gives the requirements for the criteria.
Interfacing, system boundaries and integration have in
Ekoviikki a special role as extensive energy and material
savings technologies were introduced to the houses. The
minimum heat energy savings required in the buildings to
be constructed is -34% from present standard of 160
kWh/m2,yr or 160 kWh/m2,yr or 60 kWh/m3,yr or (space
heat and dhw). For tap water use, a -22% level is
compulsory, or maximum dhw of 40-50 l/person,day. The
dhw savings approaches may have an influence on the
solar heating performance. The level of energy
conservation may be even stricter varying in approaches
from house to house.
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