01 The Challenge
Fighting smog is a priority for Zduńska Wola. The necessary condition to achieve the goal is liquidation of coal-fired furnaces used in single-family houses and tenement buildings. Deciding on the replacement of the heat source requires from the property owner to perform the analysis of the investment costs and the estimation of charges for the energy raw material, which will be incurred during the exploitation. To do this reliably, it is necessary to collect various data and make dozens of calculations. Based on conversations with residents, we have diagnosed that this is both the key and the most difficult part of planning the energy transition in one’s home.
02 The Solution
We developed the concept of a simple online calculator. A resident of Zdunska Wola gives their address in the application, and the system informs them whether they can connect their building to the heat or gas pipeline. Next, the user provides only two simple pieces of data: the surface area of their house and the number of inhabitants, and assesses the degree of thermal insulation of the building. On this basis, the software calculates the estimated costs of building the connection, buying a boiler or replacing the installation. It compares these costs with the costs of electric, biomass and liquid gas heating. It also suggests to the resident which subsidies they can use and enables them to fill in an online application for the city’s Stop Smog coal furnace replacement subsidy programme. The app also calculates the current heating bills for each energy source and even takes into account the cost of a possible loan.
03 Implementation
We submitted the concept of the application to the Hackathon for Cities, organised by the Polish Development Fund and GovTech Poland. More than a dozen IT teams worked on our idea. Within 48 hours, ready IT solutions were created. The best of them were implemented on the IT infrastructure of the city hall. The winners received an honorarium from the competition organisers, thanks to which Zduńska Wola received the innovative system free of charge.
04 Results
3000 – estimated number of coal-fired furnaces in Zdunska Wola
1907 – number of calculations performed in the first year of the calculator’s operation
92 – number of applications for a subsidy for cooker replacement generated in the application
64% – the percentage of applications generated in the application in the total number of applications submitted in 2002
The municipal programme Stop Smog offers residents subsidies for replacing coal-fired furnaces. As a result, over the last few years the citizens of Zduńska Wola have already scrapped more than half a thousand coal-burning stoves. We are also carrying out thermal modernization of municipal buildings. We connect them to the heat network, thanks to which we remove an additional 100-130 coal-fired furnaces every year.
