Characterizing Positive Energy District (PED) through a Preliminary Review of 60 Existing Projects in Europe

Xingxing Zhang,Santhan Penaka,Maria Sánchez,Paolo Civiero,Han Vandevyvere,Samhita Giriraj

doi:10.3390/buildings11080318

Abstract

Positive Energy District (PED) is recently proposed to be an integral part of a district/urban energy system with a corresponding positive influence. Thus, the PED concept could become the key solution to energy system transition towards carbon neutrality. This paper intends to report and visualize the initial analytical results of 60 existing PED projects in Europe about their main characteristics, including geographical information, spatial-temporal scale, energy concepts, building archetypes, finance source, keywords, finance model and challenges/barriers. As a result, a dedicated date base is developed and it could be further expanded/interoperated through an interactive dashboard. It is found that Norway and Italy have the most PED projects so far. Many PED projects state a ‘yearly’ time scale while nearly 1/3 projects have less than 0.2 km2 area in terms of spatial scale. The private investment together with regional/national grants is commonly observed. A mixture of residential, commercial and office/social buildings are found. The most common renewable energy systems include solar energy, district heating/cooling, wind and geothermal energy. Challenges and barriers for PED related projects vary from the planning stage to the implementation stage. Furthermore, the text mining approach is applied to examine the keywords or concentrations of PED-related projects at different stages. These preliminary results are expected to give useful guidance for future PED definitions and proposals of ‘reference PED’.

Highlights

Introduction published maps and institutional affilRecently, the Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been discussed substantially as it could become the key solution to energy systems in transition towards carbon neutrality
According to European Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan Action 3.2 [1], PED could be defined as an energy-efficient and energy-flexible urban area with surplus renewable energy production and net-zero greenhouse gas emission in a certain time frame
Monti et al [3] described the process of adaption and the challenges/barriers faced by the PED decision makers

Summary

Introduction

Introduction published maps and institutional affilRecently, the Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been discussed substantially as it could become the key solution to energy systems in transition towards carbon neutrality. According to European Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan Action 3.2 [1], PED could be defined as an energy-efficient and energy-flexible urban area with surplus renewable energy production and net-zero greenhouse gas emission in a certain time frame. Some PED initiatives aim to create a knowledge base and a roadmap to achieve the energy transition of cities according to established time horizons [2]. Monti et al [3] described the process of adaption and the challenges/barriers faced by the PED decision makers. They proposed how simulation, optimization, ICT approaches and business models are combined in a holistic and pragmatic way. Lindholm et al [4] defined three types of PEDs

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion