Climate Center funding for digital twins of our UT Field Lab blue/green infrastructure

My colleague Yijian Zeng has prepared this slide to show what our digital twin project is about. We are funded by the Climate Center. We combine terrestrial sensors with radar results and modeling to determine blue/green roof performance. We have a BSc student on this too, and there will be a tangible result in the form of open data visible at the UT Field Lab, where you can see live data of current measurements, a summary of past performance, and notable highlights during extreme weather events.

 

UT Field Lab installing internal sensors

We installed additional indoor sensors this month to gather information of the green roofs' impacts on the indoor climate. Now each of the office/storage spaces inside has data on temperature, humidity, and CO2. While we cannot show the entire rooms online, the placement shows the sensors have more or less the same height in each room.   

Though there is a very clear online guide as to how to connect the sensors to the main unit, both physically and virtually, there were still some hiccups. The main issue was that even though following the step by step guide and adding one sensor at a time, and renaming these to correspond to the room numbers, this information was lost in the process of connecting the phone app to the online dashboard where data can be downloaded. This meant that each sensor was simply registered as 'sensor' instead of also indicating what room it was in. Since these were all identical sensors, it would not be possible to deduce what room had which sensor and therefore which values corresponded to which room. 

Rather than starting the entire process from scratch, I opted a simpler determination by tricking the temperature sensor in showing a higher value, with my cup of tea. With these temporary spikes, each sensor could be renamed to the appropriate room, which took only 15 minutes. The last room of course required no more tea temperature spiking, only renaming.

Poster for the UT Field Lab on Green Infrastructure

This overview poster shows the positioning of each sensor so far for our green infrastructure project at the UT Field Lab:

 

Construction of green roofs by Dakbloemenweide

Today three different types of green roofs were installed by Dakbloemenweide. This was complicated at the start by ice on the roof, which still had to be broken down and shovelled off. Once this was done, the bottom layer was installed to prevent leakages. The second layer catches water and is covered by a filter that prevents root growth. Next is the soil and vegetation, which could finally be complemented by sensors. 

The three types of roof are:

extensive green roof: 6 cm soil

thicker green roof: 9 cm soil

blue-green roof: 9 cm soil, thicker retention layer 

 

 

 

KIEM MV Event for blue-green roofs and solar panels

We are having another KIEM MV event regarding our research on blue-green roofs and solar panels, this time in the botanical garden in Amsterdam. The only drawback is that the event is in Dutch. Hope to see you there!

 Invitation:

Tijdens de Week van de Circulaire Economie nodigen wij je graag uit voor een inspirerende bijeenkomst over de toekomst van het Nederlandse daklandschap op 19 maart, genaamd Groene daken met zonnepanelen, haalbaar en schaalbaar?

 Klik hier om aan te melden!

 Waarom deze bijeenkomst?

Veel stedelijke daken zijn nog steeds donkere, ongebruikte oppervlakken die bijdragen aan hittestress. Door groene daken te combineren met zonnepanelen kunnen we zorgen voor:

 • Meer biodiversiteit  

• Duurzame energieopwekking  

• Een klimaatbestendige stad

Tijdens deze bijeenkomst presenteren de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Dakbloemenweide en Universiteit Twente de resultaten van een praktijkgericht onderzoeksproject naar circulaire groene daken met zonnepanelen.

Wat krijg je mee?

• Voorbeeld mini-ecowandeling voor jezelf of (zakelijke) contacten

• Canvas voor regeneratief bedrijfsmodel

• Na de bijeenkomst: projectresultaten

• Netwerkgelegenheid

 Locatie: 

Botanische Tuin Amsterdam Zuid  

Van der Boechorststraat 8  

1081 BT Amsterdam  

 Programma:

09:00 – Inloop met koffie en thee  

09:45 – Introductie: Het project Integraal Duurzame Daken  

10:00 – Onderwijsresultaten: Minibosbad  

10:15 – Onderzoeksresultaten: Business Model Canvas  

 10:30 – Rondetafelsessies

·                Nieuwe gebouwen en de schaalbaarheid van duurzame daken  

·                Bestaande gebouwen en de haalbaarheid van duurzame daken  

 11:15 – Plenaire terugkoppeling  

11:30 – Borrel en snacks

 Voor wie?

Ondernemers, beleidsmedewerkers, onderzoekers, docenten en gebouweigenaren die willen meedenken over de transformatie van het Nederlandse daklandschap.

Als je nog mensen kent die graag willen weten wat we rond het experimentele circulaire groendak + zonnepanelen hebben gedaan, dan mag je hen uiteraard uitnodigen. Dat kan met deze mail, of door deze LI post te delen: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/katinkaquintelier_weekvandece-circulaireeconomie-activity-7435979158784114688-K11H?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAGnGBwBsMVQXDf-R8ig3zHG7BaU2AWA1uc

  

 

Poster for KIEM MV event

 Here is a poster prepared for the KIEM MV research on combining blue-green roofs and solar panels:

 

Installing internal sensors

This week I installed internal sensors for temperature and humidity, one in each of the rooms at the West side of the BMC building. At the moment, only one room is occupied for some days a week, but we hope to bring more people in. One other issue compromising the research plan is that one room is now reserved for equipment storage. Though it is not taking up much space, it might influence the comparability of results. However, I expect it is still fine for people to sit next to the equipment. 

The installed sensors are the smart weather station and air quality monitors from Netatmo. Not only are they easy to install, there are also online video instructions available to help with installation. Each unit automatically connects to an online dashboard where all data can be anaylzed and downloaded. This equipment provides all the information we need and requires little space. The only requirement for functioning well is that they are not placed near a heating source. Now all we need internally is more people.

 

LiLA construction October - December 2025

Yes, it is named the UT Field Lab now, and yes, in October the official opening was held. Still, not all experiments are quite finished just yet. Most need some additional sensors aboveground, just like the green infrastructure project.

Our current timeline is to have the staircase installed. The foundation of steel was placed in December, which you can see in the photos below. Once this is finished, we can complete external sensor placement. At the end of January, the green roofs are to be constructed, so we do expect one more construction post before we can officially start data collection.