Local Energy Planning Research Articles

Sub-national Energy Access Planning Model for Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Barpak

As most nations have adopted the Sustainable Development agenda to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, it is vital that planning of energy systems at local, regional and national levels also align with the agenda in order to achieve the goals. This study explores the sustainability of primary energy resources of a rural community to meet growing demands of the community, in order to achieve SDGs for energy access Goal no. 7 (SDG7) at local level. Using a linear back-casting techno-economic energy access model that informs the expected change in energy demand in order to reach SDG7 targets, this study examined whether local energy resources would be enough to achieve the targets for Barpak VDC (named such at the time of data collection before Nepal’s administrative restructuring), and explored the possibility of importing electricity from national grid to attain SDG7 targets. By analyzing the outputs of the model for Barpak, we found that currently assessed local energy resources are insufficient to meet the energy access targets. Importing electricity from national grid, in addition to the mini-hydropower plant currently in operation at Barpak is needed to achieve the targets. Huge cost investment and timely expansion of transmission and distribution infrastructure is crucial. By 2030, total energy demand is expected to grow up to 50,000 Gigajoules per year. Electricity import from national grid grows steadily, reaching up to 45,000 Gigajoules in 2030. The social costs of energy will continue to be dominated by household sector till 2030, reaching up to 30 million Nepali Rupees per year in total. Use of wood as fuel, the only significant source of emission in the model is modeled to decrease linearly and stop by 2030, as required by SDGs. Emission of 17 Metric Tonnes of Carbon-dioxide and 4.5 million kg Methane equivalent is reduced to zero at 2030. This model serves as an innovative approach to integrate SDG targets to local and regional energy planning process, and can be adopted for energy systems and policy planning for various regions in Nepal.

Exploring public perceptions of renewable energy: Evidence from a word network model in social network services

Given the energy-related accidents and issues in our society, public perceptions of specific energy technologies are a fundamental concern while formulating local and national energy plans. As an approach toward addressing these perceptions, the current study was aimed at collecting user-created contents on renewable energy in a topic-based social network service. A word network model in social network services (SNS) was proposed, and a network analysis was conducted for examining the public perceptions of renewable energy resources. The results obtained indicated that the word network model in SNSs and the employed approaches can extract both frequently mentioned and latent issues pertaining to renewable energy. In addition, they are useful for observing public perspectives toward renewable energy. Based on the results, the implications as well as the limitations of the approach are discussed.

Institutional capacity to integrate ‘radical’ perspectives on sustainability in small municipalities: experiences from Sweden

This study explores the local municipality as an important arena for developing and implementing initiatives for a transition to long-term sustainable development. It focuses on institutional conditions that support the integration of ‘radical’, transition-oriented perspectives and ideas (i.e. perspectives stressing the need for changed social power relations and ‘other’ norms and visions for the future,) in local governance, with a specific focus on small municipalities. Inspired by transition literature and theory on institutional capacity, the paper explores frames of reference, relational resources, and mobilisation capacity. Empirically, the paper builds on research in two small municipalities in Sweden, where we studied documents on policy for local development, and energy and land-use planning, and carried out qualitative interviews with politicians, planners, and actors from local industry and civil society. The study provides a rich empirical illustration of specific conditions that affect the possibilities to work with transition-oriented perspectives in small municipalities.

An innovative approach to local solar energy planning in Riva Trigoso, Italy

This paper aims at introducing an approach for improving the renewable sources technologies inclusion in the municipality planning process and calls to revisit the current governance to strengthen the implementation effectiveness. The solar energy potential and the local energy requirements of the city of Riva Trigoso are analyzed and two types of solar technologies are tested. An analytical methodology based on the exposition of the buildings present in the considered location is developed. The method allows to identify the areas where it is more convenient to invest and the specific technology to be used. The effectiveness of the optimization method is validated via comparison with random allocation of the same total surface of panels. The results have been translated into GIS maps where the municipality can identify the areas at best solar energy potential and the more suitable technology. The proposed approach can be used for any location and it allows to define detailed scenarios for local energy planning processes.

REGIONAL ENERGY SUPPLY PLANNING: CHANCE CONSTRAINT PROGRAMMING

Regional energy planning under uncertainty is an important concept in energy-economy models which makes the planning outcomes closer to reality and enables the decision maker to select the best decision. Reliability of local energy supply and the possibility of long-term access to resources and emissions reduction is an essential step. In this study, an urban energy demand which is supplied by electricity network is investigated with an optimal combination of alternative energy resources such as solar, wind and natural gas during the next 10 years. The optimal combination of fossil energy as well as renewable energies are determined by goal stochastic programming model. Isfahan province in Iran has been selected as a case study. Empirical results indicate that due to the importance of investment and operation costs, the dominant share of energy supply will belong to natural gas, while the shares of solar and wind energies remain constant in the next decade. In sum, the share of solar and wind energies increases by 8% in 10 years and therefore, it is not necessary to increase electricity supply by the network in order to meet annual increasing demand. CO2 and NOx emissions will decrease significantly.Keywords: Stochastic programming, Goal programming, Local energy planning, Iran.JEL Classifications: Q43, Q47DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.7870

“By and for local people”: assessing the connection between local energy plans and community energy

ABSTRACT“Community energy” (CE) is argued to be an opportunity to transition to low-carbon energy systems while creating additional benefits for local communities. CE is defined as energy initiatives that place a high degree of emphasis on participation of local community members through ownership and control, where through doing so, benefits are created for the community. The trend has seen considerable growth in many countries over the last decade. Occurring simultaneously is a trend for local communities (e.g. municipalities) to create their own Local Energy Plans (LEPs) – a planning process that articulates energy-related actions (i.e. expected outcomes). While CE and LEPs both address energy activities in a local context, any further connection between these trends remains unclear.This research develops a framework, based on CE and LEP literature, to assess LEPs for their relevance to CE. The research analyses 77 LEPs from across Canada for the ways in which they address the three components that define CE: community participation, community ownership, and community capacity. The main findings are that LEPs have emerged as a process that is both relevant to CE and capable of strategically addressing its components. Despite this, LEPs do not appear to reveal a radically different approach to the “closed and institutional” models of traditional community involvement practices. The investigation suggests that for CE advocates, LEPs may be considered to be an important avenue to pursue CE ambitions. LEPs could increase their relevance to CE by improving the processes and actions related to all three CE components.

Assessing the bioenergy potential of grassland biomass from conservation areas in England

Bioenergy may be one of the ‘ecosystem services of the future’ for grasslands managed for conservation as the concept of bio-based economies is embraced worldwide. Although the idea of producing biogas and bioethanol from lignocellulosic material is not new, there are currently few regional-level comparisons of the bioenergy potential of high-diversity grasslands that would establish whether this could be a competitive bioenergy feedstock for farmers. Comparing the chemical composition and biogas yields of biomass samples from 13 grasslands in England and 73 other bioenergy feedstocks reveals that the lignin content of biomass from grasslands managed for conservation was up to 50% less than other bioenergy crops. Grasslands managed for conservation yielded up to 160% more biogas per ton dry matter than cereals or crop waste and only slightly less than Miscanthus. GIS modeling of the estimated biogas yields of grasslands managed for conservation and fields currently sown with Miscanthus show that grasslands are larger (20.57 ha) than Miscanthus fields (5.95 ha) and are projected to produce up to 117% more biogas per average field. Future incorporation of high-diversity grasslands into local and nation-wide energy plans may help reduce global fossil-fuel use in the 21st century.

Analysing the Institutional Setting of Local Renewable Energy Planning and Implementation in the EU: A Systematic Literature Review

Due to the liberalisation of the European Union’s (EU) electricity sector, stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities in local energy planning and implementation are not well-defined in legislation anymore. To investigate what local energy planning and implementation processes look like in the post-liberalisation era we conduct a systematic literature review by addressing the question ‘which institutional settings of local renewable energy planning and implementation in the EU’s post-liberalisation area has prior empirical research identified?’ For this systematic analysis we conceptualised the analytic concept ‘action situation’ (as developed by Elinor Ostrom), from an energy governance and energy policy perspective. The literature review was conducted in two cycles: A systematic database search and snowballing. Four clusters of search terms were used to search two databases. The selected articles were coded using Atlas.ti. Our in-depth qualitative analysis revealed the institutional arrangements used in the reported local energy planning processes were found to not be ideal for the introduction of renewable energy technologies. No type of actor group seems actively to support the realisation of renewable energy projects. Moreover, a high dependence on financial subsidies was found. These results are useful for practitioners and policy-makers as they show which possibilities and limitations stakeholders encounter in the changed level playing field of local energy planning. The article also presents propositions for future research.

The life cycle impact of energy final uses in small urban systems: Implications for emission accounting and EU sustainable local energy planning

Up to 80% of worldwide energy consumption and carbon emissions are associated with urban activities, markedly contributing to climate change. Since the environmental impacts of urban energy consumption have wide implications for local energy planning, the main aims or this research are: to assess the Global Warming Potential of energy final uses in a typical small urban area performing the Life Cycle Assessment and to compare this value with the one estimated using the Baseline Emission Inventory. This assessment methodology was applied to the urban area of Treviso, a municipality of 83,000 inhabitants in Northern Italy. The resulting Global Warming Potential is 718,413 t CO2 eq. This value suggests that the Baseline Emission Inventory, which is still the most widely used methodology in sustainable energy action planning, is likely to lead to a significant underestimation of the Global Warming Potential. Overall, differences ranging from 13% to 50% were found, depending on the urban energy sector. These findings indicate that the Life Cycle approach would provide a more realistic estimation of the Global Warming Potential due to the urban energy final uses and should therefore be preferred to the Baseline Emission Inventory to define and implement sustainable urban energy policies.

Community Capacity Building for Energy Sovereignty: A First Nation Case Study

<p><em>Ontario’s 2017 Long-Term Energy Plan has identified the </em><em>Wataynikaneyap Power transmission line </em><em>as a priority project.</em><em> </em><em>The line will connect seventeen remote, off-grid, diesel-dependent First Nation</em><em> </em><em>communitiesin </em><em>northwestern Ontario, Canada to the provincial grid</em><em>. The province’s </em><em>current energy mandates and policies commit program dollars to build the human capacities o</em><em>f the seventeen</em><em> </em><em>Wataynikaneyap Power communities </em><em>through the </em><em>Remote Electrification Readiness Program (RERP)</em><em>. This effort is part of growing interests, changing perspectives, and focus in the continuum of provincial strategies to encourage First Nations to meet their emerging energy transitional needs and to partake in the energy sector.</em></p><p><em>Capacity-building challenges are unique in</em><em> </em><em>the</em><em> </em><em>Wataynikaneyap Power communities because</em><em> </em><em>they experience higher levels of poverty and</em><em> </em><em>socio</em><em> </em><em>economic inequities, are subjected to antiquated and unjust institutional structures, are following a legal and self-governance status, and are maintaining distinct cultures and ways of life.</em></p><p><em>Capacity building as a concept is wide-ranging</em><em> </em><em>and offers</em><em> </em><em>a multitude of expressions</em><em> </em><em>and interpretations. For </em><em>the </em><em>Wataynikaneyap Power communities</em><em>, capacity building</em><em> has offered the opportunity</em><em> </em><em>to exert their inherent rights and to increase their participation in local and regional energy planning and development.</em></p><em>This community-based research is derived from grassroots ethnographic community observation. Through a case study of one of the Wataynikaneyap Power communities, Poplar Hill First Nation, the paper will: a) elucidate a working example of an Indigenous capacity-building process through the RERP; b) demonstrate that capacity development is a key building block for self-determination and to achieve energy sovereignty; and c) illustrate the broader scope of learnings and pathways to effective capacity building for Indigenous communities that will drive energy development initiatives and actions in Canada’s expansive energy sector.</em>

The nationwide characterization and modeling of local energy systems: Quantifying the role of decentralized generation and energy resources in future communities

Transnational municipal networks have led to an increase in the adoption of local energy planning and climate strategies in recent decades. As such, methods are needed to assess local energy systems on a broad scale. This study demonstrates one such approach for Switzerland. Clustering techniques are applied to multidimensional municipal data sets in order to define a set of representative local energy system archetypes for Switzerland. Data includes local energy resource potentials, existing heat and electricity energy demands by sector, and the developed environment classification for approximately 2300 municipalities. Select archetypes are analyzed using a cost optimization model to determine the optimal utilization of local resources and decentralized generation technologies until 2050 under different national energy policy scenarios. Local energy resources provide approximately 40% of municipal heat generation (largely using solar, waste, and wood potentials) and 20% of municipal electricity generation (largely using photovoltaics) by 2050, on average across the modeled archetypes. Urban archetypes demonstrate high rooftop solar and waste potentials and usage rates, while smaller rural and suburban archetypes exhibit relatively high manure, wood and small hydro potentials and usage. Efficiency measures (e.g., renovations) and high CO2 prices are vital to achieving long-term local energy demand and emissions reductions.

A multi-stakeholder decision support system for local neighbourhood energy planning

Implementation of clean energy initiatives at the neighbourhood level by local stakeholders is necessary to reach internationally agreed climate goals. The present paper aims to design a novel decision support system in order to facilitate clean neighbourhood energy planning with the involvement of multiple stakeholders, initiated by a local authority. In our study the cornerstones of a multi-stakeholder decision support system, containing data, models, tools, and a design process are presented so as to assist local authorities in preparing an energy plan for reaching pre-set climate goals. The decision support system was tested in a pilot case in the city of The Hague, The Netherlands. This new policy instrument is helpful for effective energy planning by introducing stakeholders and sharing and learning from different perspectives. The explicit recognition of boundary conditions specified by stakeholders turns out to enrich a purely ‘technical’ energy optimisation plan and to generate a much broader support for new energy initiatives. By making a location-specific plan stakeholders are able to come up with useful information and recommendations. Furthermore, a facilitator present during the design process was necessary to guide the discussion and provide explanations about the data.

Rethinking Participation in Smart Energy System Planning

While the technical layout of smart energy systems is well advanced, the implementation of these systems is slowed down by the current decision-making practice regarding such energy infrastructures. We call for a reorganisation of the decision-making process on local energy planning and address the question ‘how can decision-making on the design and implementation of Smart Energy Systems be accelerated?’ Inspired by engineering design thinking and based on two workshop sessions, we identify five design phases and an implementation phase, and distinguish between a design component and a participation component. This allows for the effective participation of external stakeholders at four specific moments in the decision-making process. This way, efficiency and effectiveness in smart energy system planning can be increased, without compromising on participation. When applied to the Dutch context of energy planning, the developed decision-making model is useful for project participants as well as policy-makers in a wide variety of settings.

Annex 51: Case studies and guidelines for energy efficient communities

While IEA EBC Annexes usually are focused on R&D about single energy technologies, their broad scale use in practice is of even higher importance to contribute to global energy goals. This practical application of low-carbon technologies on community scale has been the subject of Annex 51, carried out from 2010 to 2013. In this Annex, evaluating 25 community energy case studies of the 10 participating countries, a ‘Guidebook on Successful Urban Energy Planning’ has been extracted from these evaluations to directly address practical urban/energy planners and municipal decision makers. The main content of the Guidebook with respect to planning approaches is summarized in this paper, distinguishing between the different planning fields of ‘urban energy planning’, which is addressing whole cities and communities, and ‘local energy planning’, oriented to neighbourhoods or building clusters. The necessary link between both is emphasized, considering a city as an interconnected energy system requiring a holistic approach rather than a compartmented consideration. As a side effect, a general method to calculate the primary energy performance of buildings and neighbourhoods employing different energy systems, including energy efficiency or energy conservation technologies, was derived. Using appropriate system characteristics, such as seasonal performances, this approach can be applied for every energy system, and for every building or neighbourhood. It is presented in this paper supplying an example from one of the case studies.

Boosting the energy renovation rate of the private building stock in Italy: Policies and innovative GIS-based tools

In Europe and Italy, the building stock is a great consumer of energy and there is the need to renovate it. The local administration is best placed to develop local energy plans to lead the change toward a more energy efficiency built environment. A wide research aimed to individuate main barriers and drivers to energy-oriented buildings retrofit at urban level has been developed. The first part focuses on the public administration, while the work here presented focuses on private stakeholders, since the private buildings represent the majority of the building stock. We conducted an analysis of the barriers and drivers that influence the energy renovation by private stakeholders (building owners, building manager and citizens, companies) and proposed a framework of policies, a municipal energy model and innovative Geographic Information System (GIS)-based tools. We adopted a hybrid approach, using both real and statistical data. Moreover, we integrated already existing databases linking information instead of starting anew. We developed the tools for a medium-sized municipality in northern Italy, implementing methods and procedures that can be applied for any Italian municipality. The tools are flexible and customizable and their capability could be enriched by better data availability (i.e. real energy consumption data).

Characterization of Building Thermal Energy Consumption at the Urban Scale

The ongoing urban transition toward decarbonized energy systems has raised the attention on local energy planning practices. Besides the multiple actors involved in the planning process, the complexity of the urban energy systems requires the elaboration of heterogeneous data. In such contest, the paper introduces and compares two GIS-based methodologies for supporting the spatial characterization of the local residential built environment in terms of building distribution and space heating energy consumption. Starting from the assessment of residential consumption, a third method for the characterization of non-residential building thermal energy consumption is proposed. From a bottom-up perspective, in both residential models all the buildings are geo-referenced and clustered according to their thermo-physical characteristics. From a top-down perspective, energy balance data are used to calibrate the bottom-up results and to match the total building loads. The procedure, tested on the city of Turin as case study, allows assessing the energy use of buildings and to create urban energy maps.The energy spatial characterization of a territory is the basis for performing short and long-term scenarios analysis. Results of this method can be useful to: i. decision maker to understand the current state of the territorial energy consumption to identify critical energy intense areas; ii. citizens for visualising their energy consumption and iii. researchers for setting up the basis of further urban analysis.

Development of an automated modeler of environment and energy geographic information (E-GIS) for ecofriendly city planning

Abstract In this study, an Energy Integrated Support System (EnerISS) Modeler (or simply, Modeler), an automated module of a knowledge-based urban planning support system, was developed to support the strategic technology implementation of environmentally friendly local energy planning. Modeler was developed as a tool that integrates various formats of the planning data into a unified format during the planning stage. It automates the three-dimensional (3D) modeling of the integrated urban space and presents visual information to support decision-making processes. The system architecture of Modeler includes the formation of building polygons, textures for classified land cover shape, topography, and 3D urban space. Modeler was developed on a native-based software (S/W) platform. It was created with a single document frame (SDF) from the Windows Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) Library and is driven by a 3D-based engine that can be used by a GIS client. Modeler was validated for a domestic city in the urban planning stage on a test bed platform. Because of the expansion of a ubiquitous environment and increasing social network services (SNS), the ability to port the Modeler to a web-based platform should be investigated, thus enabling easier access for decision makers.

Multicriteria decision support in local energy planning: An evaluation of alternative scenarios for the Sustainable Energy Action Plan

One of the major challenges for the implementation of local energy planning is the successful development of a Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) by the local authorities (especially within the framework of their participation to the Covenant of Mayors’ initiative). This aspect constitutes a decision making problem, since the local authorities have to identify the best fields of actions and opportunities for reaching their long-term CO2 reduction target. However, the already available methods and tools do not offer an integrated framework for the SEAPs’ development and especially the selection of sustainable Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Rational Use of Energy (RUE) technologies. In this context, the aim of this paper is to present a participatory supportive framework for the implementation of local energy planning. At the first level, the proposed approach incorporates the development of alternative Scenarios of Actions (using knowledge-based process, participatory approach and aspiration level). At the second level, a direct and transparent multicriteria decision support is introduced, in order to evaluate the feasible Scenarios. It includes the application of a multicriteria ordinal regression approach and an extreme ranking analysis method for the estimation of the best and worst possible ranking position of each Scenario. The results from the pilot appraisal of the methodological approach to a “real” problem are presented and discussed. The adopted approach contributes to the selection of the most appropriate combination of RES/RUE actions, supporting in this way the local authorities to the development of their SEAP.

Setting targets for local energy planning: Critical assessment and a new approach

Targets are crucial to the definition, effort and investment implied in any plan. The way how they are set should therefore be carefully thought and decided. In the context of local energy planning, however, the increasingly active attitude of local stakeholders has not yet been corresponded by an evolution on the way how targets are set. The aim of this work is to review how targets are currently defined and, after justification is found, to develop a new methodology for target setting in the context of local energy planning, that can guide local authorities and other stakeholders to act towards global climate change mitigation and other policy objectives.This paper begins with a critical assessment of existing targets set in the context of local energy planning, in order to understand how they were defined and the implications of different methodological choices. Here, the drawbacks found on current practices call for the need of a new methodology that answers to two fundamental requisites: being able to reflect local characteristics and past accountability, by taking into account the starting point; and being quantitatively coherent with existing long-term goals. The paper then presents an alternative approach for target setting that corresponds to the referred requisites, and illustrates the implications through the application to nine municipalities in the Metropolitan Area of Porto.

공간가중회귀 모형을 이용한 서울시 에너지 소비에 따른 이산화탄소 배출 분석

Effort to reduce energy consumptions or CO2 emissions is global trend. To follow this trend, spatial studies related to characteristics affecting energy consumptions or CO2 emissions have been conducted, but only with the focus on spatial dependence, not on spatial heterogeneity. The aim of this study is to investigate spatial heterogeneity patterns of CO2 emission based on socio-economic factors, land-use characteristics and traffic infrastructure of Seoul city. Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) analysis was performed with 423 administrative district data in Seoul. The results suggest that population and employment densities, road density and railway length in most districts are found to have positive impact on the CO2 emissions. Residential and green area densities also have the highest positive impact on CO2 emissions in most districts of Gangnam-gu. The resulting model can be used to identify the spatial patterns of CO2 emissions at district level in Seoul. Eventually it can contribute to local energy policy and planning of metropolitan area.