Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions

Climate change challenges regulators to put in place more ambitious building and community energy-related requirements to fulfill the ambitions Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. In the EU, reaching the climate gas-reduction goals of the Paris Agreement challenges stakeholders on all geographical and organizational levels from nations regions, cities, and communities. Following bottom-up approaches for energy planning on the neighborhood level is a promising attempt to reduce energy demand, increase efficiency, and lower the carbon footprint in a multi-stakeholder approach. This is important for the future task to decarbonize our cities, which will have to focus on neighborhood and district level (Jank2017). The concept of Energy Master Planning (EMP) can help to initiate a better planning and implementation process to fulfill these goals through providing a roadmap for energy planning. The application of principles of a holistic approach to neighborhoods and districts often termed community energy planning in the literature (EED2012; Jank2017; Strømann-Andersen2012;Fox2016;Zhivovetal.2014; Robinson et al.2009) and the concept of Energy Master Planning (EMP) can help to initiate a better planning and implementation process to fulfill these goals by providing a roadmap for energy efficiency in the district as a basis for energy planning that points to the future. Haase and Lohse(2019) tried to define EMP and explained the various steps involved in the process:(1) energy efficiency and (2) comprehensive energy planning.(1) When it comes to energy efficiency, in the context of the 2012 EU directive (EED2012), several important measures have been adopted throughout the EU to improve energy efficiency. These include national long-term renovation strategies for the building stock in each EU country, mandatory energy efficiency certificates accompanying the sale and rental of buildings, the preparation of national energy efficiency action plans (NEEAPs) every three years, minimum energy efficiency standards, and labeling for a variety of products, as well as obligation schemes for energy companies (to achieve yearly energy savings of1.5% of annual sales to final consumers). However, Member States have yet to fully implement the directive and additional support in building capacity and know how is needed (EPBD2018).(2) Significant additional energy savings, reduced emissions, and increased energysecuritycanberealizedbyconsideringholisticsolutionsfortheheating,cooling,and power needs of communities, on the neighborhood and district scales, comprising collections of buildings. As a result, a considerable amount of literature has become available including both guidance and assessment tools a imedat EMP at the neighborhood and district level, e.g., campuses(DOE2013;Huanget al.2015; EnergyPlan2019; CASBEE2019; BREEAM2019; LEED2019).But the existing guidance and tools do not seem to be fully solving the challenges. The energy planning consists of determining the optimal mix of energy sources to satisfy a given energy demand. The major difficulties of this issue lie in its multi-dimensional and scale aspects (temporal and geographical), but also in the necessity to consider the quantitative (economic, technical), but also qualitative (environmental impact, social criterion), criteria. In addition, Schiefelbe in et al. (2017) concluded in their investigation of case studies and energy guidelines for energy-efficient communities that “the primary challenges result from inefficient organizational processes and unsupportive framework for implementation”.

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https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/46812