Sensitivity assessment of a district energy assessment characterisation model based on cadastral data

Sustainable energy planning of cities is a complex problem which should address the comparative analysis of alternative future energy scenarios form a social, economic and environmental point of view. In this regard, the development of methods and tools to allow building energy demand characterization of large areas is becoming one of the main challenges in this field. New studies focused on the energy diagnosis of districts and cities with different location and climatic conditions are necessary to calibrate current methods and assumptions, as well as for the replication of the validated method in other cities around the globe. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the results obtained during the sensitivity assessment of a specific tool for the building energy demand characterization at city scale developed by Tecnalia in the European research project PlanHeat for four different European cities. During this calibration process, the influence of the main parameters that can be adjusted within the tool is evaluated and discussed. Results show that the relevance of adjusting properly each parameter varies depending on the climate zone of the city evaluated and other characteristics of the conjunction of buildings included in each district.The work described in this article is partially funded by the PLANHEAT project, Grant Agreement Number 723757, 2016-2019, as part of the call H2020-EE-2016-RIA-IA and by the mySMARTLife project, Grant Agreement Number 731297, 2016-2021, as part of the call H2020-SCC-2016. The file work for this study was conducted thanks to the active collaboration of the Energy and Environment department of the municipality of Antwerp, the Climate and Environmental Management of the municipality of Helsinki, the Department SMARTCity and Innovation and Department Spatial Basic Infrastructure of the municipality of Hamburg and to the Research, Innovation and Higher Education Department of the municipality of Nantes Métropole

A GIS-Based Multicriteria Assessment for Identification of Positive Energy Districts Boundary in Cities

Discussions regarding the definition of Positive Energy Districts and the concept of a boundary are still being actively held. Even though there are certain initiatives working on the boundary limitations for PEDs, there is no methodology or tool developed for selecting peculiar spaces for future PED implementations. The paper focuses on a flexible GIS-based Multicriteria assessment method that identifies the most suitable areas to reach an annual positive non-renewable energy balance. For that purpose, a GIS-based tool is developed to indicate the boundary from an energy perspective harmonized with urban design and land-use planning. The method emphasizes evaluation through economic, social, political, legal, environmental, and technical criteria, and the results present the suitability of areas at macro and micro scales. The current study outlines macro scale analyses in six European cities that represent Follower Cities under the MAKING-CITY H2020 project. Further research will be conducted for micro-scale analyses and the outcomes will pursue a technology selection process.This research was funded by the EU H2020 Programme under grant agreement n◦82441

Methodology for integrated modelling and impact assessment of city energy system scenarios

Cities are ought to play a key role in the energy transition to a low carbon society as they concentrate more than half of the world's population and are responsible for about 67% primary energy consumption and around 70% of the energy-related CO2 emissions. To achieve the agreed climate targets, efficient urban planning is a must. Tools and methods have risen to model different aspects of the energy performance of urban areas. Nevertheless, addressing the complexity of a city energy system is a great challenge and new integrated tools and methods are still needed. This paper presents a methodology for integrated city energy modelling and assessment, from the characterization of the city's current energy performance to the development and assessment of future scenarios. Energy characterization is based on the combination of bottom-up approaches with top-down data to establish the city's energy baseline. This baseline integrates bottom-up results from a GIS based model which is used to characterize the city's building stock energy performance, while available information on the vehicle stock is used to model the mobility sector. Scenarios are developed from this baseline and assessed through a multi-criteria impact assessment model. A simplified case study is carried out for the city of Valencia (Spain) to demonstrate the suggested methodology, and results are shown for three different scenarios: one focused on the building sector, one on transport, and one combining measures in both sectors. The transport-focused scenario demonstrates to be the most favourable in terms of energy savings and emissions reductions. The application of the proposed method is intended to support the development of strategies and plans for energy transition at city level. The main challenges for its application in cities are data availability at urban level, the uncertainty related to modelling the transport sector, and the unavailability of adapted I/O tables at city scale to assess socioeconomic impacts

Viability of district heating networks in temperate climates : Benefits and barriers of ultra-low cold and warm temperature networks

The decarbonization of the heat supply and the achievement of a higher energy security calls for the substitution of conventional fossil fuel boilers by other means of heat supply. In dense urban areas, where the pipe network cost is proportionally lower, district heating can be an attractive solution for this goal. If there is a possibility to recover heat that would otherwise be wasted or produce renewable heat centrally in a more economic manner, this can be a very cost-effective solution for decarbonising the heat supply. Networks for district heating have traditionally distributed heat at a temperature sufficiently high to virtually all consumers. In cold district networks , the network is maintained at close to ambient temperature (10-30°C), and require the heat to be boosted at the consumer level. Cold networks have drawn plenty of research attention thanks to several advantages such as their capacity to provide with the same network both heating and cooling or using more economic piping.  Nonetheless, comparisons between the two technologies have been seldom performed in the literature. This study has aimed to fill this gap and has drawn an economic comparison between these two solutions in a case study for the city of Bilbao, which presents a mild oceanic climate but features a very dense urban fabric. Decarb City Pipes 2050 - Transition roadmaps to energy efficient, zero-carbon urban heating and coolin

Automatised and georeferenced energy assessment of an Antwerp district based on cadastral data

Municipalities play a key role in supporting Europe's energy transition towards a low-carbon economy. However, there is a lack of tools to allow municipalities to easily formulate a detailed energy vision for their city. Nevertheless, most municipalities have access to georeferenced cartographic and cadastre information, including that on basic building characteristics. This article describes an innovative method to calculate and display the current hourly thermal energy demand for each building in a district based on basic cartography, cadastre, and degree-day values. The method is divided into two main blocks: (1) input data processing to obtain geometric information (e.g. geolocation, building and facades’ dimensions) and semantic data (e.g. use, year of construction), and (2) district energy assessment to calculate the thermal energy demand using data obtained in block 1. The proposed method has been applied and tested in the historical district of Antwerp. The reliability and thoroughness of the results obtained using the method are demonstrated based on two different validations: (1) comparison of the results with those calculated using an existing dynamic energy simulation tool, and (2) comparison of the results with the real gas consumption of a partial sector of the selected district. The first validation shows that the average difference between the two methodologies is less than 11% for the heating demand, less than 11% for the cooling demand, and less than 15% for the domestic hot water demand. The second validation shows a 24% difference between the real natural gas consumption and that obtained by new methodology. Finally, the results have been presented to the municipality of Antwerp, which plans to use the method to design the district heating expansion within the city centre. Furthermore, sensitivity assessment was used to determine the relevance of the main input parameters considered in this method, such as the base temperature, energy system schedules, window-to-wall ratio, and solar gains.The work described in this article is partially funded by the PLANHEAT project, Grant Agreement Number 723757, 2016-2019, as part of the call H2020-EE-2016-RIA-IA. The field work for this study was conducted thanks to the active collaboration of the Energy and Environment department of the municipality of Antwerp

Data integration and pre-processing

<p>This report addresses the data integration and pre-processing of the GRETA project. Data collection and processing aims to support the work package 4 models that are an integral part of the GRETA project, which investigates the emergence of energy citizenship from the local level to the supranational level. The document contains information about: (1) data gathering, (3) relevant data identification, (4) data pre-processing, and (4) data onboarding, storing, and sharing.</p&gt