Abstract
Energy planning has become one of the most powerful tools for urban planning even if several constraints, (i.e., aesthetic, archaeological, landscape) and technological (low diffusion of Renewable Energy Sources, RES) reduce its spreading. An efficient and sustainable urban planning process should be based on detailed energy issues, such as: (i) the effective energetic characteristics and needs of the area like urban density and energy consumption, (ii) the integration of different RES and (iii) the diffusion of high efficiency technologies for energy production like cogeneration and district heating. The above-mentioned energetic issues and constraints must be constantly updated, in order to evaluate the consequences on environment and landscape due to new distributed generation technologies. Moreover, energy strategies and policies must be adapted to the actual evolution of the area. In this paper the authors present a Geographical Information Database System (GIS DB) based on: (i) the availability of land use (Land Capability Classification, LCC) to evaluate the productive potential; (ii) the estimation of residential energy consumptions (e.g., electricity), (iii) the integration of RES. The GIS DB model has been experimented in a wide area of Central Italy, considering exclusively the solar energy source for energy generation.
Highlights
The Geographical Information Database System (GIS DB) model for the Province of Frosinone was further implemented with raster grid for the analysis of: (i) the real land use, (ii) the possibility of exploitation of photovoltaic technology in urban areas, (iii) the electricity consumption and their geographical distribution, and (iv) the power generation facilities installed and their energy production estimates
In order to get a complete representation of the use of the soil, thematic maps developed by the CORINE-Land Cover Project [30] were analyzed, classifying the Province of Frosinone into artificial surfaces, agricultural, forest, and water bodies (Figure 1)
This can be effectively managed by a Geographic Information System (GIS) DB, which can represent a useful tool for integrated design, able to dynamically adjust energy policies to the energy and architectural evolution of the territory
Summary
The rapid increase in world population, together with the progressive urbanization has led more than 50% of the world population to live in urban areas. Being “smart” means that city must have a “brain” This means that an effective information system must be available to integrate and manage huge amount of data on mobility, air and environmental conditions, waste, energy efficiency and utilities, etc. In [22], the implementation of a GIS allows to: (i) locate sport facilities in Rome and to analyze the demand and supply of sports; (ii) to access and update many aspects of urban life in Modena (i.e., building heritage, energy consumption, city companies, and maintenance of green areas); (iii) to evaluate energy consumptions and to test some bio-architecture and green building strategies on a medium-size urban area; (iv) to plan the exploitation of lands with poor agricultural potential (or unsuitable for residential purposes) for biofuel crops production [23]. The investigated area is interesting for the morphology, for the poor energetic performance of the existing buildings and for the climatic, environmental, and landscape peculiarities of the territory
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