Hub Concept Research Articles

Compatibility about the concept of energy hub: a strict and visual review

Purpose Despite the concept of energy hub becoming widely signed and used in recent literature for addressing energy geopolitics, policies and relationships, it is still being confused interchangeably with other concepts. Hence, the present paper aims to shed light on the concepts of an energy hub, energy corridor, energy transit and energy center to clarify the main differences among these concepts through conducting a systematic review for the previous studies using the VOSviewer software targeting the identification of the main research gaps and clearing any confusion related to these concepts. Design/methodology/approach This paper conducted a systematic review based on a qualitative synthesis for the available publications from Web of Science and Scopus databases. It also followed strict search and filtration criteria based on the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines. In this review, a total of 47 papers, which met the inclusion criteria were selected and identified in the synthesis, and a bibliometric visualization approach were implemented by using VOSviewer software. Findings The bibliometric analysis presented the growth of the research topic recently. Besides, text mining and keyword analysis revealed the key themes that address energy hubs issues such as security, geopolitics, relationships, policies and transit of energy. The main research gaps identified in this review will provide a reference point that will encourage and open new avenues for other interested researchers for future studies. Furthermore, this review contributes to our understanding of the literature related to energy hub area through bibliometric analysis and visualization of publications data. Originality/value According to the authors’ knowledge, this review may be the first bibliometric analysis and systematic review of the energy hub domain.

Integrated Care Systems and the Aortovascular Hub.

Aortovascular medicine and surgery in relation to vascular health of the population requires input from a broad range of specialists and institutions throughout a patient life as well as integration with allied health care providers. This paper presents the essence of the novel clinical concept of the 'Aortovascular Hub' .

Jordan’s Role in A Regional Food Hub

A Regional Food Hub that covers at least Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt is a necessity now more than any other time. This hub will allow the optimized flow of not only food products, but also various inputs, exchange of knowledge, coordination of policies, and joint response to emergencies. The hub will be a much-needed catalyst to further the already progressing regional cooperation, drive investments in larger and bigger projects and infrastructure, spur research and innovation in agricultural and food technologies, encourage private sectors involvement as a result of governments’ support and commitment, create jobs in multiple related venues, and enhance overall economic conditions as a result.
 Jordan has pioneered the concept of this food hub and has a middle position in the region. Jordan has an excellent footprint in many of the agricultural inputs, mainly fertilizers, seeds, and vaccines. Jordan has built a good institutional capacity, data gathering techniques, and has a multitude of regional and international cooperation networks. Thus, Jordan may continue to further drive the concept along with its regional partners. The Regional Food Hub may not happen instantaneously, but it has to start now. The beginning can simply be by a process of stakeholders’ engagement amongst regional partners, that can then develop into further cooperation based on the action plan and active committees that will eventually be crowned by a full-fledged and dedicated institution.

A comprehensive framework for optimal planning of competing energy hubs based on the game theory

The concept of energy hub has been used recently to study multi-carrier energy systems. A model has been proposed in this paper for planning multi-hub energy system considering the competition between the hubs. The energy hubs are interconnected by a power grid. Hubs supply the demands for heat and electricity using various technologies and access to several energy carriers. To this aim, load zones were used to incorporate demand profiles for both heat and electricity in the different seasons of the year. Supplying the demand most cost-effectively is the objective function of each hub. These hubs select the optimum strategy separately in a competitive space. The power grid is owned by Regional Transmission Operator (RTO) which is operated based on DC Power Flow. Moreover, elastic electricity demand is also addressed for the market in each region. The proposed model formulate the problem as a Cournot Oligopoly game using Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions to consider the objective function of the hubs as well as that of RTO. Once solved, yearly capacity-building is determined as well as the flow of energy carriers for each technology, regional electricity prices and the amounts of electricity transmission between regions for each load zone and each hub. The proposed model has been applied to a test system and applicability of the proposed model was verified. Finally, the results of competitive modeling were compared with those of the centralized modeling.

Urban cells: Extending the energy hub concept to facilitate sector and spatial coupling

• The concept of the urban cell is introduced. • Novel concept help to design interconnected energy infrastructure. • Both sectoral and spatial coupling is considered. • A novel computational model based on modular approach is introduced. • It was shown urban cell concept reduces cost by 37%. • It was shown urban cell concept increases renewable energy capacity by 25%. The rapid growth of urban areas and concerns over climate change make it vital to improve the energy sustainability of cities. Understanding the complex interactions within different sectors (sectoral) and localities (spatial) of cities plays a crucial role in improving efficiency and sustainability, which is extremely challenging due to the complex urban morphology. State-of-the-art energy concepts do not facilitate a detailed consideration of both sectoral and spatial coupling that energy infrastructure maintains at the urban scale. This has become a significant challenge when designing interconnected urban energy infrastructure. The Urban Cell concept is introduced to address this bottleneck. A novel computational model using a modular approach is introduced to create an interconnected urban infrastructure, including the energy, building, and transportation sectors. Optimal sizing of the distributed energy system (including renewables, energy storage, and dispatchable sources) and optimal urban morphology is determined within a modular unit. A game-theoretic approach is used to model the interactions between urban cells (modular units). The study revealed that the urban cell concept can reduce the net present value of the interconnected energy infrastructure by 37% while increasing the installed renewable energy capacity by 25%. This demonstrates the benefit potential of urban cells and the importance of considering interactions between different sectors and different parts within a city. The Urban Cell concept can be used to present the complex interactions maintained within a city.

Multi-energy synergistic optimization in steelmaking process based on energy hub concept

Multi-energy synergistic optimization in steelmaking process based on energy hub concept

Hydrogen farm concept: A Perspective for Turkey

Hydrogen farm concept: A Perspective for Turkey

Optimal investment and scheduling of residential multi-energy systems including electric mobility: A cost-effective approach to climate change mitigation

Residential energy and mobility demand are responsible for a substantial share of global greenhouse gas emissions due to high dependency on fossil fuels in heating and motorized individual transport. Technology upgrades might enable cost-effective climate change mitigation in decentralized mobility-including Multi-energy Systems (MIMES). Their holistic and cross-sectoral optimization with respect to design and operation can innovatively identify tradeoffs between ecological and economical solutions, quantify potential benefits and show drawbacks over current solutions. To this end, this work provides a novel, hourly-resolved, consumer-centric, multi-objective optimization framework based on the Energy Hub concept that includes private mobility investments. It compares four distinct technology portfolios for minimal lifecycle emissions and total annualized cost when supplying residential demands to promote beneficial solutions. In a case study, consumers may modify their combustion-based heating and mobility systems (1) by switching to e-mobility (2), by switching to stationary Multi-energy Systems (3), or by switching to e-mobility and Multi-energy Systems simultaneously (4). Optimizations on 83 stochastically selected single- and multi-family buildings in St. Gallen, Switzerland, demonstrate that all three technological upgrades offer improved performance over (1): While costs decrease moderately in cost-driven optimizations, emission reductions range from 16% up to 68% when emission-driven optimizations are performed. The joint electrification of stationary and mobile assets (4) is particularly attractive and outperforms all other technology cases. Scenario (3) offers the second-best performance. While the optimal design and operation of assets depend on the technology availability, emission reduction targets, building size, and demand properties, an uncertainty analysis underpins the overall benefits of upgrades and accredits robustness to abovementioned ranking for wide techno-economic parameter variations and objectives. Pathways for further emission reductions are additionally shown, and the increased initial cost and seasonal dependence on the electricity grid are discussed as hurdles for a widespread implementation of economical and climate-friendly MIMES.

Transient thermal analyses of an integrated brake rotor and wheel hub for heavy duty vehicles

In this study, transient thermal analyses for a new integrated rotor and wheel hub concept are performed by consideration of convection, conduction and radiation effects. Test methods used for the characterization and certification purposes are constructed in a simulation environment and the effect of different ventilation vanes and rotor-hub arrangements on heat transfer mechanism is examined and the details are summarized for a reliable simulation process. Validated procedures are used to report a series of characterization and certification analyses, namely; CFD analyses including wheel assembly, cooldown analyses, R13 repeated stop fade and alpine hot descent analyses for current design and new integrated rotor and hub pair for alternative ventilation vane designs. The analyses are especially focused on predicting the cooling period and predicting maximum bearing temperatures for normal and excessive loading scenarios. To provide benchmark a commercial integrated rotor and hub pair used in heavy duty vehicles is also analysed. The average convective heat transfer coefficient and cooldown period of proposed integrated brake rotor are improved by 117.3% and 30.5% compared to the base design. The maximum wheel bearing temperature is decreased by 27.0% and by 27.1% for the proposed integrated brake rotor and wheel hub compared to the benchmark model, in accordance with the repeated stop and alpine hot descent analyses. In addition, the total weight reduction of 10 kg (15%) according to the base design is achieved.

Techno-economic system analysis of an offshore energy hub with an outlook on electrofuel applications

The integration of cross-sectoral energy hubs into large-scale wind farms opens up existing structures to new applications and contributes to achieving renewable energy systems and climate protection targets. The offshore energy hub concept consists in establishing an artificially constructed energy conversion and distribution hub that addresses two energy-related markets by power supply to public grids and by potentially enabling the conversion of renewable electricity into hydrogen or ammonia and supplying it ashore. Hence, the energy hub concept enables smart integration of offshore wind power into gas grids. Power generation on demand from stored green gas is able to cover residual power loads at low carbon intensity. Electrofuel production provides also the opportunity to export renewable fuels for sectors with traditionally high greenhouse gas emissions, e.g., agriculture or transportation. In this contribution an energy hub system in the North Sea is modeled and simulated to determine production quantities and efficiencies of electricity, hydrogen and ammonia. When comparing the efficiencies of production, storage, and transport values of 45.1–65% for hydrogen and values of 52–52.3% for ammonia were determined. Re-conversion to electricity with fuel cells of both hydrogen and ammonia is less efficient and cost worthly than their use in electrofuel applications. Because of emerging and potential cost reductions a sensitivity analysis is performed where lower capital costs (50%) lead to cost reductions in hydrogen (42–45%) and ammonia production (40–42%). Results show that energy hubs can become sustainable pillars in future energy systems through improving cost-competitiveness of wind power.

Just Transition as a Tool for Preventing Energy Poverty among Women in Mining Areas—A Case Study of the Silesia Region, Poland

The inevitable energy transformation can be perceived as an opportunity and as a threat to the actions undertaken to prevent energy poverty in European mining regions. Silesia is a special exemplification of the European region whose economy has been based on coal industry for centuries. There are still about 70,000 miners and coal is also widely used for heating households. Based on developed map of jobs lost in mining and related industry and the demographic and social data the proposal of activities addressed to different group of people has been created. It was also indicated that energy poverty in Poland mainly concerns households inhabited by single women. Therefore, the major conclusion of the paper is postulated that the Just Transition strategy should be extended by issues strictly related to the situation of women in the future labor market. Additionally, the concept of a special hub for women, whose aim would be professional activation of women of various age groups, has been introduced.

Development of an Integrated Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage Hub in the United States

The Integrated Midcontinent Stacked Carbon Storage Hub (IMSCS-HUB) is a first of a kind carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project in the midwestern United States. The project is supported under the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise (CarbonSAFE) program. The IMSCS-HUB will collect 15 million metric tonnes (MT) per year or more in Iowa and Nebraska and transport it to saline and CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) storage sites in western Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas. Sources include multiple ethanol plants (approximately 1.8 MT/Year), coal fired electric plants (approximately 12.6 MT/Year), and natural gas fired electric plants (approximately 0.6 MT/Year). The passage of an updated tax credit for storage in February 2018 provides a strong economic driver for all of the sources in the hub to develop a hub project. The tax credit provides approximately $50/T for CO2 stored in saline storage units and $35/T for CO2 stored as part of CO2-EOR production. In addition, the inclusion of many bio-energy sources such as ethanol plants allows for early implementation of the project by taking advantage of inexpensive capture ($10/MT to $12/MT) and subsidies from California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard program. Capture cost estimates for the electric utilities is approximately $33/MT. Transport costs range from $0.6/MT to $5.40/MT. Storage costs range from $3/MT to $4/MT. The hub partners include Battelle, Advanced Resources International, Archer Daniels Midland, Nebraska Public Power District, and others. The region of the project stretching from eastern Iowa to southwestern Nebraska acts as a source corridor, where sources add CO2 to the transport network. The transportation network will consist of a common carrier trunk line designed to connect the largest sources. Smaller sources will be connected through spur lines. The final routing will be selected using the location of existing rights away and environmental factors such as resource locations the critical species habitats. SimCCS and other tools will be used to finalize the routes. The region of the project from southwestern Nebraska to southwest Kansas in a storage corridor where CO2 may be stored in either saline projects or CO2-EOR projects. South of Kansas the CO2 will be transported to Texas for utilization in CO2-EOR. Two saline storage sites and two EOR opportunities have been identified as anchor projects for the storage corridor. The anchor sites are at the northern and southern sides of the storage corridor and will act to validate the storage potential of the entire corridor. In Nebraska saline storage is being planned in Perkins county and CO2-EOR is being studied at Sleepy Hollow Field in Red Willow county. In Kansas, saline storage and CO2- EOR are being planned for Patterson-Heinitz-Hartland (Patterson) Field in Kearney County. Multiple storage formations occur vertically at each site allowing for stacked storage minimizing the surface footprint for monitoring and maximizes the use of storage resources at each site. Data from new tests wells or seismic surveys for each of the sites has been used to create detailed geologic and reservoir models. Modeling for each of the anchor saline sites indicates at least a 50 million tonne storage capacity. The CO2-EOR projects are expected to utilize 2.2 MT and 3.9 MT of CO2 and produce 4.3 and 9.8 million barrels of oil for Sleepy Hollow and Patterson Fields, respectively. The inclusion of CO2-EOR along with saline storage adds an additional economic driver for the project with an estimated revenue of $128/MT and $154/MT of CO2 utilized. The results of the first two phases of the project demonstrate the feasibility of the midcontinent hub concept that couples a diverse set of redundant sources to multiple saline and CO2-EOR projects. The results show that the economics and geology are favorable for early implementation of commercial scale CCUS. The existence of low carbon fuel standard subsidies, storage tax credits, and revenue from produced oil act as economic drivers to support the hub in addition to the climate benefit gained by storing CO2 the hub supports local agriculture and oil production helping to create public support. This presentation will discuss the project development and project economics and how they relate to both stacked saline storage and CO2-EOR in the development of a storage hub. The development of a hub project allows the transport of CO2 from areas such as Iowa that have poor storage potential to areas such as western Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas that have high storage potential. This is critical to the implementation of CCUS in the midcontinent US. The presentation will also discuss the advantage of including redundant sources and sinks to develop a CO2 market that can sustain itself as a commercial enterprise after government funding ends.

A hybrid robust‐stochastic approach for optimal scheduling of interconnected hydrogen‐based energy hubs

The energy hub (EH) concept is an efficient way to integrate various energy carriers. In addition, demand response programmes (DRPs) are complementary to improving an EH's efficiency and increase energy system flexibility. The hydrogen storage system, as a green energy carrier, has an essential role in balancing supply and demand precisely, similar to other storage systems. A hybrid robust-stochastic approach is applied herein to address fluctuations in wind power generation, multiple demands, and electricity market price in a hydrogen-based smart micro-energy hub (SMEH) with multi-energy storage systems. The proposed hybrid approach enables the operator to manage the existing uncertainties with more flexibility. Also, flexible electrical and thermal demands under an integrated demand response programme (IDRP) are implemented in the proposed SMEH. The optimal scheduling of the hydrogen-based SMEH problem considering wind power generation and electricity market price fluctuations, as well as IDRP, is modelled via a mixed-integer linear programming problem. Finally, the validity and applicability of the proposed model are verified through simulation and numerical results.

Design and dispatching of all-clean energy producing-consuming system with six-energy coupling

The installed capacity of wind power and photovoltaic (PV) has grown up in recent years due to the requirement of developing green power. However, the curtailment of wind power and PV becomes serious as well owing to the relatively limited adjusting capability of the power grid, leading to tremendous waste of energy. Meanwhile, besides electricity, the requirement on other energy grows up gradually as well, resulting in remarkable pressure on the corresponding energy supply systems. On the other hand, the coupling and storage of multi-energy cannot only promote the consumption of renewable energy greatly but mitigate the pressure of various energy supply systems by replenishing various styles of energy. In this paper, taking offshore island as an example, a model of six-energy producing-consuming self-consistent (SEPCSC) system is put forward in the first. Further, by using the concept of energy hub, this model can be divided into supply side, conversion side and load side, each of which can be analyzed and modeled respectively. On this basis, a day-ahead dispatching model is established, which takes minimizing the total cost of purchasing energy from the external network as the objective function. Further, various appropriate constraints are designed correspondingly. The necessity of multi-energy coupling and introducing multiple storage media is validated with the simulation comparison to those cases of loose-coupling or battery only. In addition, the impact of various energy prices under the style of multi-energy coupling is investigated. It can be proven with case studies that the proposed SEPCSC system is capable of promoting the consumption of renewable energy, accompanied by the decrease in the total cost of system dispatching.

Planning of multi-hub energy system by considering competition issue

Energy hub concept has been emerged as a suitable tool to analyze multi-carrier energy systems. Deregulation and increasing competition in the energy industry have provided a suitable platform for developing the energy systems composed of competing energy hubs. Planning of energy hubs considering the competition between the hubs has not been sufficiently addressed, yet. A model has been proposed in this study for planning of a multi-hub energy system considering the competition between the hubs. The hubs are interconnected via an electric transmission system. While the heat demand for each hub must be supplied by deploying associated technologies, the electricity demand can be fulfilled by investing in technologies or exchanging through the transmission system considering the market price and line loading limits. A linear model has been developed to determine the optimal capacity development of heat and electricity generation technologies for energy hubs in a multi-period planning horizon to meet the heat and electricity demand for the defined load zone. The problem has been formulated and solved using Karush–Kuhn–Tucker (KKT) conditions. Once solved, the optimal capacity development in the hubs is determined as well as the amount and price of electricity interchange between the hubs for the load zones of the planning horizon. The proposed model has been applied to 3-Hub and 5-Hub energy systems. The effect of renewable generation and storage system have also been evaluated. The result have been presented and discussed to evaluate the validity of the results as well as the capabilities of the proposed model. It was observed that, due to the competition between the hubs, the electricity generation capacity in a hub can reach 23% higher that the peak demand of the same hub. The electricity price between the hubs differs by 25% while the difference between the gas price of the hubs is about 5 percent. It has also been observed that inclusion of renewable generation or storage technologies can alter the electricity generation capacity by 63 percent in HUB2.

Chemical Safety Management Training Hub for Downstream Users & Distributers of Chemicals

Chemical Safety Management Training Hub for Chemicals Users/ChemSM-HUB � project funded under Erasmus+ Programme � has been tailored to meet the training needs related to legal provisions under REACH & CLP Regulations of employees responsible for CSM among downstream users (DU) and distributers (D) of chemicals. The strategic objectives proposed by the project were to increase awareness of relevant professional communities on the new European legislation on CSM, strengthen the competencies of the target groups in the field of CSM, and enhance the ability of trainers to create and deliver vocational training. The design and concept of the training hub and the training materials have been established based on a training needs assessment, which also provided the necessary information to define the training objectives, the format, and the type of materials to be developed. To ensure high quality of the training, but also the availability in a user-friendly format, the training materials and the training hub have been developed and improved progressively as part of a consortium peer-review process during the joint-staff training organized in Romania according to the format of Erasmus+ Programme - KA202 Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training. Also, the materials created have been subjected to pilot testing during the blended mobility training of VET learners within Erasmus+ Programme � which, according to the new circumstances imposed by Sars-Cov-2 pandemic has been organized strictly online using an integrated approach of a webinar application and the ChemSM-HUB e-learning platform. According to the feedback received in both cases � during peer review and the pilot training - materials and the hub have been subject to various changes and resulted in a comprehensive training package and, respectively, a training hub that facilitates individual study and certification of the DU & D of chemicals, and provides access to up-to-date information in a concise and structured format.

Collaborative optimization for multiple energy stations in distributed energy network based on electricity and heat interchanges

Distributed energy network (DEN), which connects distributed energy systems in multiple energy stations through energy interchanges, effectively shares the available energy and ensures dynamic balances between energy supplies and demands. However, the comprehensive coordination of multiple energy stations increases the difficulty of DEN planning and energy scheduling. Based on the concept of energy hub, a collaborative optimization model for determining the optimal capacities and operation scheduling of multiple energy stations is proposed to improve the energy, economic, and environment performances of DEN. A case was studied to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. Compared with the independent optimization of energy stations, the collaborative optimization increases primary energy saving ratio by 5.3%, annual total cost saving rate by 5.1%, and carbon dioxide emission reduction ratio by 1.1%, respectively. The collaboration reduces the total power output of gas turbines by 7.6%, thus, increasing the operation time in full load to improve its average efficiency. The interchanges between energy stations make excess heat and electricity reduce by 16.5% and 1.1%, respectively, demonstrating that the collaborative optimization is an effective method for DEN system designs and energy managements to achieve potential benefits.

Principles of Transformation in an Integrated Energy System when Applying the Concept of an Energy Hub

The cost of electricity and heat for the population, enterprises and organizations in Russia has increased several times in recent years. An urgent issue for consumers was the search for opportunities to save money when paying for energy. The heating fee is about a quarter of the total amount of the utility bill. The tariff, the cost of one unit of energy (Gcal/m2) spent on heating a room, increases annually. Accordingly, the amount of expenses for public services in each individual family or organization also increases. The principles of transformation of various forms of energy in an integrated energy system based on the concept of an energy hub are considered. It is proposed to use the capabilities of the MATLAB/Simulink software. The MATLAB/Simulink software library does not contain complex elements with a structure with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Complex models of energy hub blocks form a special additional library. These models implement such functions as energy storage, energy conversion and summation of various types of energy. There are two types of energy transformation elements presented in the article. An illustrative example is presented that shows the economic effect of converting electricity into heat energy at preferential tariffs during the night period. The calculation of the quantitative potential of electricity for conversion is performed. Studies have shown that a flexible combination of various energy carriers using conversion and storage technologies preserves the potential for various system improvements: the total cost of energy can be reduced, the reliability of the power system is increased, network overload can be reduced, transmission losses are reduced.

The sustainable promotion strategy of transfer hub in megapolis

This article presents a methodological approach to the development of promotion strategy for a transport hub in a metropolis. In response to the modern megapolises’ growth, transport hubs perform the role of multi-functional public facility, implementing a wide set of not only transport and logistics services, but also a combination of social, shopping and entertainment functions to passengers, both tourists and local residents. The material deals with the concept of transfer hub as a transport and communication space – a territory of human existence and activities, so the issues of integration of promotion tools and marketing strategy implementation are vital on every stage of transfer hub’s existence. The adaptation of the Rodrigue-Notteboom model is proposed with the embedded marketing tools and activities to ensure transfer hub’s functioning as a transport and communication space. The stages of marketing promotion strategy implementation include marketing research of region’s economic and geographical position, traffic development and management, consumer satisfaction, promotion and marketing support of transfer hub’s services and commercial facilities among the population and tourists. The implementation of transfer hub project based on the effective marketing strategy to change certain social and cultural environment and the traffic psychology of the population of the metropolis area.

Extending the algorithms of design procedures for new structures and urban spaces by research using architectural layout models and social surveys based on the example of new investment projects of the city of Zabrze

Upon the intense political and economic transformations of the early 1990s, the economic and spatial redefinition became necessary for a number of cities in Poland. Zabrze – a typically industrial city, located in the centre of Upper Silesian conurbation, due to the restructuring of the industry which mainly meant the fall and liquidation of mining and heavy industry correlated thereto - faced the necessity to change the functioning and – in consequence – the image based on new investment projects using the city material culture resources. The decision was made to transform Zabrze into a vibrant, post-industrial place, targeted at post-industrial tourism, developing academic and medical sciences centre with cardiology playing a special role therein. All components, recognised as the direction of the city sustained development, influenced the creation of the list of priority investment projects, which included: the reconstruction of Górnik Zabrze city stadium, revitalising the Main Key Heritage Drift and the erection of the new Hub to replace the present railway station. The investment decisions were subjected to consultation with the inhabitants of Zabrze. Furthermore, the publicity of city authorities intention related to the new investment projects and the population’s approval were to facilitate attracting strategic investors. The question was asked about the kind of advertising and visual techniques to be used to make the suggested new facilities most readable to the Zabrze community, so diversified by age, education and social origin. The choice fell on making several backlit architectural layout models of the new investment projects mentioned above, emphasising that close cooperation between the authors of the models and the designers of the new structures must be initiated, in order to enable up-to-date amendments and corrections to the approved solutions. At the same time, the exhibition of the finished models in places available to the general public was assumed and later accomplished, so that the local community could easily become familiar with the suggested new projects. Thus, it took a few years to create the layout model of the new Hub, presented at several meeting, the model of the Main Key Heritage Drift with accompanying facilities located in a special glass-case at the Wolności Square in the centre of Zabrze and the layout model of the new football stadium exhibited in Platan shopping centre and other buildings in the city centre at various events and meetings. It was also the major element of Zabrze stand at Real Expo Fair in Munich. The wide range of meetings and consultations has brought about, without limitation, a diametrical change of the Hub concept, changes in the facade colour range and the stadium auditorium seating as well as the change to the suggested landscaping of the area directly adjacent to the structure, acceptance of the formal-utility concept of the revitalised drift. The expansion of the communication platform between the city authorities and local community caused the increased interest in the possibility to affect the city policy and made the inhabitants aware of their shared responsibility for the development and future of Zabrze.