Abstract
Hundreds of cities worldwide have committed to decarbonizing or becoming carbon neutral by 2030, 2050, or even sooner. The challenge is particularly acute for the dense, compact cities of the European Mediterranean basin. To maximize their energy self-sufficiency, Mediterranean cities seek to scale up PV production within their boundaries and supply themselves from ground-mounted plants in their surroundings. This paper provides an alternative approach based on the energy exchange between cities and their metropolitan areas. The potential of the approach is demonstrated by the results attained under a less favorable (conservative) scenario: supplying the electricity demand of the residential stock exclusively with rooftop PV. Drawing on a combination of spatial analysis (based on cadastral and statistical data) and energy simulation (with HOMER), the approach is applied to Valencia, Spain's city and its metropolitan area. Results show that rooftop PV may increase the PV coverage rate from 61% (Valencia and its first metropolitan ring) to 79.2% (whole metropolitan area) – or about 30% in relative terms. This may encourage Mediterranean cities to develop innovative urban-metropolitan energy exchange models, hopefully under the criteria of spatial justice.
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