Integrating Energy Demand and Local Renewable Energy Sources in Smart Urban Development Zones: New Options for Climate-Friendly Resilient Urban Planning

Zach Zach,Kretschmer Kretschmer,Stoeglehner Stoeglehner

doi:10.3390/en12193672

Abstract

In recent years, most cities have experienced rapid population growth. Concurrently, international policies have called for substantial reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the resilience of energy-supply systems has become more important. Consequently, solutions to exhaust locally-available sources must be developed to minimize the fraction of fossil fuels for heating, cooling and electricity. This article shows an example of designing a low-temperature heating and cooling grid based on locally-available renewables and waste heat and introduces general hypotheses concerning smart energy planning in urban development zones. Taking an urban development area in Vienna, Austria, as example, it is shown that wastewater, geothermal and (office) waste heat, solar energy, and the heat content of ambient air can play an important role within a climate-friendly urban energy concept and that heating and cooling demand can be covered completely on-site. From an environmental point of view, the concept is promising, as greenhouse gas emissions and the non-renewable primary energy consumption can be reduced by over 70% compared to conventional gas heating, while, based on current (fossil) energy prices, it is economically not fully competitive. The gap could be closed e.g. by CO2 taxes on fossil energy sources or (temporal) subsidies for renewables. Additionally, reservations of stakeholders in the energy sector against this innovative approach must be dismantled.

Highlights

In recent years and decades, cities have experienced population growth, and this trend is estimated to last [1]
This article shows an example of designing a low-temperature heating and cooling grid based on locally-available renewables and waste heat and introduces general hypotheses concerning smart energy planning in urban development zones
The results show that in this urban development area, the heating and cooling energy consumption can be covered by on-site renewables, whereas the electricity consumption can only be covered by 10%

Summary

Introduction

In recent years and decades, cities have experienced population growth, and this trend is estimated to last [1]. In order to use the limited urban areas efficiently, moderate densification of buildings is a broadly discussed option [2,3,4] Within these new quarters it is desirable to mix different building functions (domestic, workplaces, leisure, commercial, etc.) [5]: Moderate densification and mixing building functions lead to benefits in different areas of social, economic and environmental interest, e.g., the land use is minimized, distances between buildings are kept closer (reducing traffic and travel time), and the heat consumption density as well as the annual full load hours for heating are increased. A possible application is e.g., the provision of energy from waste heat from industry or offices to a grid which serves as a heat source for households or the optimization of building typologies for the generation of electricity and heat from solar collectors which can both be integrated in an urban energy concept

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion