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Implementation of positive energy district concepts and energy master plans for decarbonization of districts
Abstract
In order to achieve a holistic approach to community energy planning for neighbourhoods and districts, it is crucial to provide planners, decision makers, and stakeholders with the necessary methods and instruments. However, there is a research gap in terms of planning and implementation strategies and models. To address this gap, our research used literature and document analysis as well as qualitative interviews to identify implementation models and energy supply options for Positive Energy Districts (PEDs), and to determine which market actors are needed for PEDs. We also discussed the consequences of scaling up the PED concept.Our analysis highlights the importance of integrated energy planning, which is critical for reducing energy consumption, securing the location of energy infrastructure (generation, distribution, storage), and achieving long-term sustainable development and climate neutrality. Therefore, understanding the different dimensions of sustainable development in combination with energy supply and consumption is more important than ever for planning and realizing settlements.
... Implementing comprehensive strategies for the heating, cooling, and electricity requirements of communities at a district and city level can lead to substantial reductions in energy consumption, lower emissions, and enhanced energy reliability. Although there is a wealth of information on energy-efficient design for neighborhoods and districts [5][6][7][8][9][10][11], current resources primarily focus on building-scale and technology-driven strategies, such as renewables integration, passive building strategies and dynamic systems integration, neglecting the specific challenges-and opportunities-of neighborhood-scale sustainable design. Furthermore, the vast array of tools and instruments available to design practitioners is often limiting, due to the lack of a cohesive, streamlined framework to effectively implement energy reduction strategies at the masterplan and district level. ...
The need for energy efficiency in neighborhood-scale architectural design is driven by environmental imperatives and escalating energy costs. This study identifies three key phases in a design process framework where machine learning can be applied to optimize energy consumption in early design stages. The overall framework integrates machine learning tools into the design workflow, enhancing design exploration from concept level and enabling targeted energy assessments. This paper focuses on the first phase (Phase 1) of the framework, which employs machine learning for building energy forecasting using only the few inputs available in a business-as-usual early-stage design workflow. The CatBoost model was selected for its high accuracy in predicting energy consumption using minimal input data. A preliminary application to a case study in New York City showed high predictive accuracy while reducing the input needed, with R2 scores of 0.88 for both cross-validation and test datasets. Shapely additive explanation analysis validated the selection of key influencing parameters such as building area, principal building activity, and climate zones. The test demonstrated discrepancies between the test data-driven model and a physics-based energy model values ranging from −8.69% to 11.04%, which can be considered an acceptable result in early-stage design. The remaining two phases, though outside the scope of this study, are introduced at a conceptual level to provide an overview of the full framework. Phase 2 will analyze building shape and elevation, assessing the total energy use intensity, while Phase 3 will apply district-level energy optimization across interconnected buildings. The findings from Phase 1 underscore the potential of machine learning to integrate energy efficiency considerations into neighborhood-scale design from the earliest stages, providing reliable predictions that can inform sustainable design.
... In particular, the relevance of the different PED stakeholders and opportunities for collaboration depend on the phase of the project [47,57,58]. For the planning and design phase, which is the focus of the present paper, various authors recognise the key role of local public authorities [11,59]. ...
The positive energy district (PED) is a rather recent concept that aims to contribute to the main objectives of the Energy Union strategy. It is based on an integrated multi-sectoral approach in response to Europe’s most complex challenges. But to what extent have its development and implementation been supported by research and innovation programs? And what is the state of the art of its implementation and effective penetration into the current energy systems of European cities, according to the evidence provided by the scientific literature? This study aims to investigate these issues, providing a critical overview of the PED situation by means of a systematic literature review based on the use of open-access bibliometric software supplemented with content analysis. The results show that less than half of the documents analyzed refer to actual case studies, 80% of which were funded as part of research projects. This seems to lead to the conclusion that although PEDs have been strongly encouraged by the scientific community and policy initiatives at the European level, their implementation in cities is still limited. Moreover, an uneven distribution among countries can be observed. To overcome the existing barriers to PED diffusion and implementation, it would be useful to provide more ad hoc funding and, above all, facilitate its accessibility also by municipalities not yet well integrated into European projects, initiatives, and networks.
This paper analyzes and contrasts the constraints, stakeholders, and framing goals that must be considered when Energy Master Planning (EMP) is conducted for communities in seven countries. The analysis is based on findings from seven countries participating in the International Energy Agency’s “Energy in Buildings and Communities Program Annex 73”. The analysis covers design constraints such as emissions, sustainability criteria, and resilience goals, regulations and directives, regional and local limitations, such as available energy types, local conditions, and various levels of stakeholders, as well as community objectives. An analysis of the various constraints on different planning levels was done, and the key stakeholders were identified. They can be characterized by different governance structures and thereby stakeholder constellations. Mapping of the stakeholders involved provides insights in further constraints resulting into issues within the EMP that will need to be addressed for multi-owner, multi-stakeholder neighborhoods and districts. With a closer look at a case study in Elverum, Norway, the paper identifies constraints related to stakeholders involved and their impact on applying EMP.
Blockchains or distributed ledgers are an emerging technology that has drawn considerable interest from energy supply firms, startups, technology developers, financial institutions, national governments and the academic community. Numerous sources coming from these backgrounds identify blockchains as having the potential to bring significant benefits and innovation. Blockchains promise transparent, tamper-proof and secure systems that can enable novel business solutions, especially when combined with smart contracts. This work provides a comprehensive overview of fundamental principles that underpin blockchain technologies, such as system ar-chitectures and distributed consensus algorithms. Next, we focus on blockchain solutions for the energy industry and inform the state-of-the-art by thoroughly reviewing the literature and current business cases. To our knowledge, this is one of the first academic, peer-reviewed works to provide a systematic review of blockchain activities and initiatives in the energy sector. Our study reviews 140 blockchain research projects and startups from which we construct a map of the potential and relevance of blockchains for energy applications. These initiatives were systematically classified into different groups according to the field of activity, implementation platform and consensus strategy used. 1 Opportunities, potential challenges and limitations for a number of use cases are discussed, ranging from emerging peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading and Internet of Things (IoT) applications , to decentralised marketplaces, electric vehicle charging and e-mobility. For each of these use cases, our contribution is twofold: first, in identifying the technical challenges that blockchain technology can solve for that application as well as its potential drawbacks, and second in briefly presenting the research and industrial projects and startups that are currently applying blockchain technology to that area. The paper ends with a discussion of challenges and market barriers the technology needs to overcome to get past the hype phase, prove its commercial viability and finally be adopted in the mainstream.
Bottom-up transition narratives help to enable the implementation of energy transitions. Yet, scholarship shows that little light has been shed on how bottom-up transition narratives change during the course of transition. By proposing a framework that envisions bottom-up transition narratives, we analyze narratives on three German bottom-up renewable energy initiatives to address this gap. Relying on semi-structured interviews with innovators and adopters, we show that, during the establishment phase, the analyzed narratives take non-place-bound factors like climate change as a point of contention. At the same time, narratives underscore place-bound factors as, for instance, civil society's knowledge and participation as means for an alternative, non-rent-seeking energy system. During the adoption phase, the analyzed narratives travel easily. This represents a paradox because bottom-up energy transition narratives move beyond their local, place-bound origin in order to be reproduced in different spatial settings. By so doing, bottom-up energy transition narratives diverge from their original message. By falling short on the promotion of citizen's participation, they begin to promote sociotechnical systems that differ little from the sociotechnical systems from competing, rent-seeking energy industries during the innovation adoption pathway. Our comparative approach outlines how bottom-up energy transition narratives adapt to this trade-offduring innovation adoption events. We discuss what this means for bottom-up energy transitions and conclude that bottom-up energy transition narratives are faced with a fixity-travel dilemma during the adoption phase.
Cities are responsible for more than 70 % of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, cities can play a major part within the CO 2 emission reduction goals of the Paris agreement. Lack of technical knowledge and solutions has often been seen as major challenge for energy efficiency implementation. However, findings of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Annex 51 – Case Studies & Guidelines for Energy Efficient Communities – showed that the primary challenges result from inefficient organizational processes and unsupportive framework for implementation. Thus, solutions have to be found how the energy and urban planning can act more efficiently to successfully support the implementation of energy strategies within urban areas. Within the IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) Program, the Annex 63 – Implementation of Energy Strategies in Communities – aims at giving recommendations for an optimized energy and urban planning process to support decision makers as well as planners. Therefore, existing legal frameworks, processes and case studies within energy planning in communities were analysed. This paper shows first results of the Annex 63 to serve as orientation for decision makers and other interested persons in the field of urban energy planning.
Eco-innovations, eco-efficiency and corporate social responsibility practices define much of the current industrial sustainability agenda. While important, they are insufficient in themselves to deliver the holistic changes necessary to achieve long-term social and environmental sustainability. How can we encourage corporate innovation that significantly changes the way companies operate to ensure greater sustainability?
Sustainable business models (SBM) incorporate a triple bottom line approach and consider a wide range of stakeholder interests, including environment and society. They are important in driving and implementing corporate innovation for sustainability, can help embed sustainability into business purpose and processes, and serve as a key driver of competitive advantage.
Many innovative approaches may contribute to delivering sustainability through business models, but have not been collated under a unifying theme of business model innovation. The literature and business practice review has identified a wide range of examples of mechanisms and solutions that can contribute to business model innovation for sustainability. The examples were collated and analysed to identify defining patterns and attributes that might facilitate categorisation.
Sustainable business model archetypes are introduced to describe groupings of mechanisms and solutions that may contribute to building up the business model for sustainability. The aim of these archetypes is to develop a common language that can be used to accelerate the development of sustainable business models in research and practice. The archetypes are: Maximise material and energy efficiency; Create value from ‘waste’; Substitute with renewables and natural processes; Deliver functionality rather than ownership; Adopt a stewardship role; Encourage sufficiency; Re-purpose the business for society/environment; and Develop scale-up solutions.
Roughly 97 % of the European Union (EU)’s building stock is not considered energy efficient, and 75 to 85 % of it will still be in use in 2050. Residential buildings account for around two thirds of final energy consumption in European buildings. The rate at which new buildings either replace the old stock, or expand the total stock, is about 1 % per year. Similarly, the current renovation rate of existing buildings in the EU is about 1–2 % of the building stock renovated each year.The transformation of today’s electric power sector to a more sustainable energy production based on renewable energies will change the structure of the industry. In this transformation towards a smart energy system interaction between sectors and technologies the main stakeholders (energy service providers; utilities) will face new challenges in their traditional way of doing business. Therefore, adapting their business models to remain competitive is seen as an important step.We chose to characterize these business models by content, structure and governance of transactions for creating value by exploiting business opportunities. In the energy sector the following characteristics to the business models for energy supply have been identified.The most predominant archetypes of business models for the energy supply are presented and discussed. Further, we propose to set up (or use existing) innovation clusters, based on these promising BM to ensure that innovative business environments (innovation clusters) will grow that have the potential for upscaling and replication of District Decarbonization Solutions. There are no specific business models for energy supply applied to renovation of districts. Uncertainties in the supportive measures for the application of DER makes it difficult to develop new business models for the utilities.
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.
Traditional electric utility business models are becoming rapidly outdated. Policy changes, new energy technologies and more demanding consumers are driving the need to move away from purely operation-oriented approaches to more consumer-driven models. With these new business imperatives and a resulting need to focus on industry-level business model innovation, we explore how new models could evolve, and their benefits to consumers, utilities and other stakeholders. We also discuss the challenges ahead and the capabilities required for realizing this transformation.
This report summarizes work to better understand the structure of future photovoltaics business models and the research, development, and demonstration required to support their deployment.
The transformation of today's electric power sector to a more sustainable energy production based on renewable energies will change the structure of the industry. Consequently, utilities as the major stakeholders in this transformation will face new challenges in their way of doing business. They will have to adapt their business models to remain competitive in the new energy landscape. The present review of business model literature shows that two basic choices exist: utility-side business models and customer-side business models. The two approaches follow a very different logic of value creation. While the former is based on a small number of large projects, the latter is based on a large number of small projects. The article reveals that blueprints for utility-side business models are available, whereas customer-side business models are in an early stage of development. Applying the business model framework as an analytical tool, it is found that existing utility-side business models comprise a series of advantages for utilities in terms of revenue potential and risk avoidance. This study provides new insights about why utilities will favor utility-side business models over customer-side business models and why they also should engage in customer-side business models in their quest for more sustainable future business models.
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