What we offer

What Efficacity has to offer

ON THE STRENGTH OF ITS R&D ACTIVITIES AND THE SKILLS OF ITS MEMBERS, DRAWN FROM BOTH THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS, EFFICACITY PROVIDES THREE MAIN HIGH VALUE ADDED OFFERINGS DESIGNED TO ACCELERATE URBAN ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND ECOLOGICAL TRANSITION.

  • TOOLS
    Development of new tools to aid in the design of sustainable districts and deployment to pilot territories

 

    • Identifying sources of renewable and recoverable energy and using Recov’Heat to evaluate their potential
    • Identifying optimum energy strategies at district level
    • Detailed dynamic simulation of various energy strategies at district level, including all energy vectors, using PowerDis
    • Optimising the scaling and management of a local energy network (smart grid) using MµGO
    • Multicriteria (energy & comfort) optimisation of a real estate project using xMUSE
    • Evaluating a planning project’s environmental impacts using UrbanPrint

Partnerships with local operators in the field and with pilot territories:

  • EPA Paris-Saclay: detailed dynamic simulation of energy strategies for the three ZAC development zones of the Paris-Saclay urban campus
  • SPLA Europolia: identifying novel energy sources and energy strategies for the future Toulouse-Matabiau station district
  • CD 93: waste energy recovery strategy

 

  • EXPERIMENTATION TERRITORIES (TEX)
    Supporting territories and businesses testing out innovative solutions

When it comes to solving certain complex problems, the classic urban design approach (studies, technical specifications, call for tenders) is increasingly out of step with the accelerating pace of technological innovation and rapid changes in use.

Well aware of this, many territories have introduced experimentation mechanisms, often based on the “living lab” concept. Even so, many struggle to realise the full potential of a programme of experiments designed, conducted and evaluated on robust scientific foundations. Efficacity offers just such a method, in support of actors both public (local authorities and planners) and private (industrial firms and startups). These experiments create an ideal opportunity for collaboration between territory, businesses and users.

The added value contributed by Efficacity stems from its ability to mobilise its entire skills ecosystem to:

  • help identify the themes associated with an experimentation-based approach;
  • help structure the technical, legal and financial aspects of experiments;
  • assess experimentation results and the conditions for their rollout on a broader scale  (industrialisation).

Efficacity is already working with a number of territories in France (Paris La Défense, Marne-la-Vallée, La Réunion, Euroméditerranée) and is keen to gradually establish and run an extensive network of urban experimentation territories in France and Europe. These experimentation territories can be used to test innovative solutions put forward by dozens of firms of every size.

 

  • EVALUATION
    Developing methods for the environmental and socio-economic evaluation of urban and territorial projects.

Urban project performance evaluation: the aim here is to foster a new culture of evaluation, not as yet widely adopted in France, to capitalise on project successes and failures. Efficacity is working on robust methods of multicriteria (environmental, economic and social) evaluation of urban projects, their impacts on the territory, the degree of innovation involved, their effectiveness, sustainability, replicability, etc.

Since 2017, Efficacity has been involved in France’s biggest urban innovation initiative, the EcoCités programme financed by the Investments for the Future Programme (PIA) via the Banque des Territoires. In response to the interest raised by applying this approach to EcoCités projects, Efficacity has been helping to support other similar mechanisms (TIGA, etc.) since 2019.