Energy Planning In Cities Research Articles

Renewable energy sources in local sustainable energy action PLANs (SEAPs): analysis and outcomes

The generation of RES electricity in urban areas is regarded as a key element in achieving the 20% emission reduction target by 2020, in line with the strategy adopted by the European Union (EU). To understand the actual role of renewable energy planning in cities, as well as the adequacy of the strategies adopted, the authors considered statistics officially reported by the Joint Research Centre of the EU which regard the totality of submitted SEAPs and ten Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) as sample cities. The double survey has a dual goal: one, the collection of overall statistics to have a general framework of all cities that submitted their SEAPs and to verify their inclusion of renewables, and two, the analysis of urban planning processes and climatic features through a sample of representative cities to try to determine direct connections between the implementation of renewables and real source potentials (an aspect not present in the JRC reports). Making comparisons between SEAPs submitted by European cities, the authors report in the final discussion the merits and drawbacks of the planning and usage of renewable sources in urban areas, thereby highlighting some relevant critical points and possible directions for future research efforts.

Energy Vision Strategies for the EU Green New Deal: A Case Study of European Cities

There are three strategic levels for successful energy planning in cities: 1) Integration strategy for integrating energy planning into urban planning institutions; 2) Practice strategy for developing suitable energy planning practices in urban planning institutions, and 3) Vision strategy for the creation and integration of energy visions and scenarios required for long-term decarbonisation. The vision strategy is critical but not well researched and is the focus of this article. Using Strategic Energy Planning (SEP) as an analytical framework, the vision strategy of eight forerunner European cities are analysed. Some critical elements of SEP include the use of long-term targets, holistic energy system thinking, and retention of scenarios. The results indicate that the level of understanding and practice of the vision strategy is still deficient in the cities. Cities often use the practice of urban planning, which does not fit very well with energy planning, particularly with the vision strategy. The energy planning in the cities mostly focuses on shorter-term goals and actions, and they often abandon energy scenarios once extracted. However, through trial and error, some cities are finding ways forward. The article concludes with several recommendations, particularly that cities need to see scenarios as retainable long-term servants providing information desired by the planner, rather than serving as a guide to the planner.

Net solar generation potential from urban rooftops in Los Angeles

Rooftops provide accessible locations for solar energy installations. While rooftop solar arrays can offset in-building electricity needs, they may also stress electric grid operations. Here we present an analysis of net electricity generation potential from distributed rooftop solar in Los Angeles. We integrate spatial and temporal data for property-level electricity demands, rooftop solar generation potential, and grid capacity constraints to estimate the potential for solar to meet on-site demands and supply net exports to the electric grid. In the study area with 1.2 million parcels, rooftop solar could meet 7200 Gigawatt Hours (GWh) of on-site building demands (~29% of demand). Overall potential net generation is negative, meaning buildings use more electricity than they can produce. Yet, cumulative net export potential from solar to grid circuits is 16,400 GWh. Current policies that regulate solar array interconnection to the grid result in unutilized solar power output of 1700 MW. Lower-income and at-risk communities in LA have greater potential for exporting net solar generation to the grid. This potential should be recognized through investments and policy innovations. The method demonstrates the need for considering time-dependent calculations of net solar potential and offers a template for distributed renewable energy planning in cities.

Energy Planning in the Urban Context: Challenges and Perspectives

Cities are responsible for roughly two-thirds of global primary energy consumption, and are therefore expected to play an essential role in reaching European climate change targets. Innovative urban planning methods are in particular needed to benefit from energy efficient measures beyond the building scale. The aim of this paper is thus to explore the challenge of energy planning in cities, with the goal of providing a framework to better understand the problems and identify perspectives to tackle them.First, the evolution of urban planning is briefly described, with a focus on its progressive widening to include energetic issues. Then, European guidelines and perspectives on the subject are highlighted based on key policy documents. Finally, a systematic framework is proposed to describe the various and complex aspects of energy planning in cities. A few practical examples from two cities are presented to illustrate possible actions in line with the problem definition and European recommendations.

A Case Study of Campus Building End Use of a University in Norway

Energy use in university campus plays an important role in energy use of the society, because universities are complex infrastructure and they are similar to small towns. A university campus consisted of 35 buildings, with total area of approximately 300 000 m2 was analyzed. Six-year energy uses of electricity and heating of 24 buildings in one university campus in Norway were selected as case objects monitored by Building Energy Management System and web-based Energy Monitoring System. Descriptive statistics were applied to analyze energy use and influencing factors on energy use. The coincidence factors for both heating and electricity were calculated. The results indicate that the energy use of the whole campus were obtained as101 kWh/(m2a) for heating and 200 kWh/(m2a) for electricity, respectively. Regarding the individual buildings, the electricity use was 170± 89 kWh/(m2 a) and the heating use was 169± 115 kWh/(m2 a) for heating with a few exceptions of over 300 kWh/(m2 a). The influence of seasonal factor on heating was much higher than on electricity. The coincidence factors of heating were 0.96 in working day and 0.87 in weekend. The coincidence factors of electricity were 0.99 and 0.98, respectively. The results from the study could be used for energy planning of cities and other urban energy systems.