VIsion 2050

Villach wants to become a Smart City and with this project is taking the first steps towards the implementation of “Smart City” solutions. The main goal of this project is to develop a shared “Smart City Vision” for the town of Villach. This will be formulated together with the stakeholders in a series of workshops. On the basis of the results of the workshops, strategy documents, implementation plans and binding agreements between stakeholders will be produced.

Initial situation

With its population of 60,000, Villach is the 2^nd largest city in Carinthia. It is the technological and industrial centre of Austria’s southernmost province. 32,500 employees make Villach a dynamic trade and commercial location.
Over the last years, Villach has invested heavily in the areas of thermal networks, renewable energy, energy efficiency and mobility. Villach’s dedication to renewable energy sources can be seen as exemplary, however in terms of energy, challenges are coming up to reach emission targets and guarantee energy supply.

Vision developed

Villach’s vision can be expressed in terms of four central strategic mission statements:

1. Villach combines life quality and innovation
2. The city of Villach sets priorities in an efficient usage of resources
3. Villach is known for its exemplary energy efficiency
4. Being an international benchmark, the city of Villach attracts new enterprises

Action plan developed

The action plan includes measures and demonstration actions for the time period 2012-2015: mobility (e.g. strategic spatial planning, partner cities), buildings (e.g. project “Building Retrofit”), energy networks (e.g. demo project “Smart Grid”), communication (e.g. stakeholder dialogue, awareness raising, education)

Outlook

The first step to implement the action plan was the development of the demonstration project “VIsion Step I,” which has been submitted to the 2^nd call of the program “Smart Energy Demo – fit4set.” In conjunction with it, meetings were planned, in which further measures and potential demonstration projects were discussed.

Villach in den Medien 2013