Aditi Bhasin, responsible for Smart City Sweden East, interviewed Katarina Luhr, Vice Mayor for Environment and Climate in Stockholm, for an upcoming virtual biogas tour and took the opportunity to discuss measures taken by the City of Stockholm to promote the development of biogas.
Biogas can be used in different ways. For example, it can be used for as a vehicle fuel or for cooking and heating purposes. Biogas contributes to resilient local energy systems, circular solutions, for countries to reach the global goals. In Sweden, biogas has been produced at municipal wastewater treatment plants since the 1960s. The primary incentive was to reduce sludge volumes, but the oil crises of the 1970s changed attitudes, leading to research and construction of new plants in order to reduce environmental problems and the dependency on oil.
Smart City Sweden has welcomed many delegations interested in biogas since 2018 and started collaboration on biogas in several countries. Due to the current limited travelling opportunities, Smart City Sweden is now welcoming collaboration digitally and one possibility for international investors is to visit the sights through digital 360o tours. Aditi Bhasin is now working on a virtual biogas tour in Stockholm.
– Biogas production from food waste is an excellent example of a circular solution. We treat the waste and upgrade the biogas to fuel for transport, for example, waste picking trucks in Stockholm that run on biogas. We want to share our experiences with other countries to enable them to implement such circular solutions, says Aditi Bhasin, responsible for Smart City Sweden East and producer of the biogas tour.
In the interview, questions such as the social benefits of biogas and the challenges in implementing biogas solutions were discussed.
– By producing fuel with locally available sources, we enhance the resilience of Stockholm’s energy system, Katarina Luhr highlighted during the interview.
Katarina Luhr also talked about how a municipality can put demands in procurements processes to enable early adoption of biogas. In the digital tour, you will be able to listen to advice from Katarina about how municipalities can support the development of biogas.
The biogas tour will be released this spring, but there are already several VR tours available at Smart City Sweden. Experience the VR tours here.
