Hannele Ahvenniemi

Aalto University · Department of Mechanical Engineering

Cities have an increasingly important role in fighting against climate change, and to tackle this challenge, ambitious sustainability goals have been declared by a number of city councils. This has motivated the emergence of various sustainability-related city concepts, such as ‘sustainable city’, ‘eco city’, ‘carbon-neutral city’, however, without...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to quantify the potential levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) and cost savings from a set of households’ energy saving measures, considered as “everyday choices”. Design/methodology/approach Four areas of living were selected for the study: household electricity, space heating, transport and food consumption. The st...

Decentralized energy production offers households considerable potential to support the attainment of climate targets. This study focuses on solar photovoltaic (PV) adoption in Finland, where the adoption of solar PV systems is still at a low level. The study asks how adopters have overcome the barriers to adopting solar PV systems. A special inter...

Popularity of infill development is increasing because of the environmental benefits and cost saving potential it provides, which relate to the possibility to use existing infrastructure and services. However, the impact of infill development on value of existing properties has not been studied to a sufficient extent. Therefore, the aim of our stud...

Several scientific articles discuss non-technical barriers and policy instruments related to energy efficient building renovation. However, they are seldom systematically categorized and hardly ever related to Russian context even if Russian housing provides remarkable potential for energy-efficiency improvements. This paper identifies non-technica...

Published article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2016.09.009 For those who don't have access to it a preprint version is available at http://www.vtt.fi/inf/julkaisut/muut/2017/What_are_the_differences_between_sustainable_and_smart_cities.pdf ABSRACT: City assessment tools can be used as support for decision making in urban development as they...

This paper analyses the feasibility of Nearly Zero-Energy Building Renovation from the technical, environmental, economic and social point of view using the energy consumption calculations for country-specific reference case buildings before renovation, after a traditional renovation and after a Nearly Zero-Energy Building Renovation (NZEBR) as the...

Urbanization is a growing trend. As more and more people get together, smart systems and their integration need to be developed, not only to provide the services that people need but also to do so efficiently with minimum impact on the environment. It can be said that efficient technologies and ICT, one part of which is the Internet of Things, is a...

EcoLusaka (2013-2015) is a capacity building project funded by the Institutional Cooperation Instrument (ICI) under the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland (MFA). During the project the Finnish partner, VTT, will strengthen the capacity of the Zambian partner, Thorn Park Construction Training Centre (TPCTC) based in Lusaka, to provide education...

EU:n tavoitteen mukaisesti kaikkien uusien rakennusten tulisi olla lähes nollaenergiataloja vuodesta 2021 alkaen. Tässä projektissa tavoiteltiin energiatehokkaiden pientaloalueiden kaukolämmitysratkaisuja. Valittuja ratkaisuja mallinnettiin ja simuloitiin käyttäen pohjana Hyvinkään asuntomessualueen toteutumisvaiheessa olevaa passiivitason rakennus...

The underlying assumption of this study is that in order to retain the competitiveness while reaching for the EU targets regarding low-energy construction, district heating companies need to develop new business and service models. How district heating companies could broaden their perspective and switch to a more service-oriented way of thinking i...

Creative industries are based on individual creativity and skill, as opposed to traditional manufacturing and service industries, which are technology and process driven. Examples of high-impact creative industries include music, advertising and computer gaming. These industries play an increasingly important role in national economies worldwide. I...