Abstract
As cities grow rapidly and energy needs increase, shaping an effective energy transition is a top priority towards urban sustainability and smart development. This study attempts to answer three key research questions that can help city authorities, planners and interested agents simplify and increase the transparency of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) selection for smart city and communities (SCC) projects focusing on energy transition and creation of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs): Question 1: “What resources are available for extracting such KPIs?”; Question 2: “Which of those KPIs are the most suitable for assessing the energy transition of smart city projects and PED-related developments?” and Question 3: “How can a project-specific shortlist of KPIs be developed?”. Answering these questions can also serve as a major first step towards a “universal” KPI selection procedure. In line with this purpose, an experiential approach is presented, capitalizing on knowledge and lessons learned from an ongoing smart city project in Europe (POCITYF) that focuses on PED deployment. Under this framework, a) a review of smart city KPI frameworks has been conducted, resulting in a pool of 258 indicators that can potentially be adopted by smart city projects; b) eight key dimensions of evaluations were extracted, setting a holistic performance framework relevant to SCCs; c) a detailed evaluation process including pre-determined criteria and city-needs feedback was applied to shortlist the KPI pool, leading to a ready-to-be-used, project-specific list of 63 KPIs and d) KPIs were sorted and analyzed in different granularity levels to further facilitate the monitoring procedure. The experiential procedure presented in this study can be easily adapted to the needs of every smart city project, serving as a recommendation guide.
Highlights
Cities account for two-thirds of global energy consumption and about 75% of worldwide CO2 emissions [1]
This study attempts to answer three key research questions that can help city authorities, planners and interested agents simplify and increase the transparency of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) selection for smart city and communities (SCC) projects focusing on energy transition and creation of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs): Question 1: “What resources are available for extracting such KPIs?”; Question 2: “Which of those KPIs are the most suitable for assessing the energy transition of smart city projects and PED-related developments?” and Question 3: “How can a project-specific shortlist of KPIs be developed?”
The initial screening process of the 1928 indicators presented in Section 3.2 resulted in a pool of 258 indicators which can potentially be adopted by smart city projects covering the dimensions Energy, Environmental, Economic, information and communication technologies (ICT), Mobility, Social, Governance, and Propagation
Summary
Cities account for two-thirds of global energy consumption and about 75% of worldwide CO2 emissions [1]. Air pollution and traffic congestion as well as climate change contribute to detrimental effects and pose a huge stress on cities. Traffic congestion in cities has recorded a global rise during the last decade [3]. In the last decade, several targets in terms of cutting greenhouse gases and pollutant emissions were set worldwide, aiming at tackling climate change and achieving better ambient air quality in cities, e.g., The Paris Agreement, 2015 [4], and the recent European Green Deal, 2019 [5]. The European Green Deal provides a holistic framework for resource efficiency, clean and circular economy, low environmental impact and pollution reduction towards climate neutrality by 2050 in EU, while giving recommendations for investments and funding mechanisms available enabling a just transition
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