In Europe, 70% of citizens live in urban areas and consume around 75% of the primary energy supply. In order to reduce the impact of energy consumption and improve the competitiveness of local energy systems, Energy Communities may help to address the challenges of urban sustainability and energy security through local energy production and self-consumption.
Green urban infrastructures have a significant impact on urban climate mitigation, on indoor and outdoor thermal comfort and on energy performance of buildings. In this paper, outdoor thermal comfort conditions and energy saving for space heating and cooling were investigated before and after the use of roof-integrated green technologies. Existing urban energy and climate models and tools were applied to an urban area located in a Turin (Italy).
Building energy-use models and tools can simulate and represent the distribution of energy consum...ption of buildings located in an urban area. The aim of these models is to simulate the energy performance of buildings at multiple temporal and spatial scales, taking into account both the building shape and the surrounding urban context.
The Clean Energy Package is aimed at making the energy transition recommended by the European Union more competitive. Such an energy transition can be achieved through a variety of measures aimed at improving the security, sustainability and competitiveness of energy supply systems. These measure include the introduction of physical and regulatory infrastructures that are adequate to satisfy the energy market requirements, integrate renewable energies and ensure security of the energy supply.
Nowadays, greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase with the consequent climate changes. Energy consumption of buildings strongly affects atmospheric pollution, therefore for a sustainable development it is necessary to adopt energy efficiency policies combined with low-carbon technologies. In particular, the use of district heating (DH) has environmental and economic advantages in energy production and distribution for space heating consumption.
Il 9° Rapporto Annuale sull’Efficienza Energetica dell’ENEA analizza le politiche e gli strumenti attuati per migliorare l’efficienza negli usi finali, e le relative connessioni con il contesto economico e lo sviluppo tecnologico, fornendo una fotografia dello stato dell’efficienza energetica a livello nazionale. Quest’anno, vista l’emergenza sanitaria, si è resa necessaria una attenta rilettura in chiave di “Green Recovery” e di contributo alla ripartenza economica del Paese.
The objective of this work is to analyze and then optimize thermal energy consumptions of public buildings located within the mountain community of Lanzo, Ceronda and Casternone Valleys. Some measures have been proposed to reduce energy consumption and consequently the economic cost for energy production, as well as the harmful GHG emissions in the atmosphere.
Spatial visualization is a very useful tool to help decision-makers in the urban planning process, i) to define future energy transition pathways, ii) to implement energy efficiency strategies and iii) to integrate renewable energy technologies in the context of sustainable cities. There is thus a need to develop new tools to understand the energy consumption patterns across cities. Statistical methods are often used to understand the driving parameters of energy consumption but rarely used to evaluate future urban refurbishment scenarios.
In urban areas, district heating (DH) represents a valuable technology for providing sanitary water and house heating to buildings, because of its technical and economic strengths and its potentials on reduction of pollutant emissions. In large towns, DH is often an evolving structure. Connection of additional buildings, without any modifications in the existing network, is a frequent option to be considered to avoid further investment costs.
Increasing energy efficiency in buildings is a crucial topic, especially in those EU countries where almost 50% of the final energy consumption is used for space heating and cooling, of which 80% is used for buildings. This study presents a model and a tool that can be used to evaluate energy consumption and to identify retrofitting strategies and renewable energy sources with the aim of reaching energy and climate targets in order to improve energy security, competitiveness and sustainability in a territory.