Planning 0-Energy Cities Using Local Energy Sources

Abstract

The world is urbanizing rapidly and urban resources demand is increasing. Cities depend highly on foreign fossil energy sources. Incoming resources are used inefficiently, only part of energy input is used and remaining is wasted. To reduce dependency and increase self-sufficiency, cities have to search for local and renewable energy sources. Cities are a reservoir of untapped energy sources. Cities can support themselves to reach 0-energy status and to become independent. Cities have unused space available to capture incoming energy. Several technologies are available, but not widely implemented. Therefore, further effort should focus on planning and implementing those technologies. And urban planning should support resources management. Proposed method, based on Urban Harvest concept and exergy principle, towards planning 0-energy cities, consists of five steps. It gives an overview of urban energy demand and potential supply, and describes how supply and demand can be coupled effectively.