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Abstract This work, framed in the IEA SHC Task 51 “Solar Energy in Urban Planning”, presents an illustrative perspective of solar energy in urban planning through the analysis of 34 international case studies conducted in 10 countries. The aim here is to examine challenges, barriers and opportunities for active solar systems and passive solar strategies by taking into consideration interrelated technical and non-technical aspects in ongoing and completed projects. It focuses on exposing potential pitfalls and illustrating lessons learned in case studies divided into three categories: (i) existing urban areas, (ii) new urban areas, and (iii) solar landscapes. The analysis has yielded insights into the solar energy strategy adoption, the evaluation of solar energy production, solar irradiation and daylighting, and the architectural quality, sensitivity and visibility of the solar systems for urban planning. The outcomes have implications to stimulate successful practices in implementing solar strategies in urban planning and facilitating their replicability worldwide by avoiding common mistakes.

Recycled waste materials obtained from industrial and agricultural processes are becoming promising thermal and acoustic insulating solutions in building applications; their use can play an important role in the environmental impact reduction. The aim of the present paper is the evaluation of the thermal performance of recycled waste panels consisting of cork scraps, rice husk, coffee chaff, and end-life granulated tires, glued in different weight ratios and pressed. Six panels obtained from the mixing of these waste materials were fabricated and analyzed. In particular, the scope is the selection of the best compromise solutions from the thermal and environmental points of view. To this aim, thermal resistances were measured in laboratory and a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) analysis was carried out for each panel; a cross-comparative examination was performed in order to optimize their properties and find the best panels solutions to be assembled in the future. Life Cycle Analysis was carried out in terms of primary Embodied Energy and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, considering a ‘‘cradle-to-gate” approach. The obtained thermal conductivities varied in the 0.055 to 0.135 W/mK range, in the same order of magnitude of many traditional systems. The best thermal results were obtained for the panels made of granulated cork, rice husk, and coffee chaff in this order. The rubber granulate showed higher values of the thermal conductivity (about 0.15 W/mK); a very interesting combined solution was the panel composed of cork (60%), rice husk (20%), and coffee chaff (20%), with a thermal conductivity of 0.08 W/mK and a Global Warming Potential of only 2.6 kg CO2eq/m2. Considering the Embodied Energy (CED), the best solution is a panel composed of 56% of cork and 44% of coffee chaff (minimum CED and thermal conductivity).

The energy crisis and increasing fossil fuel prices due to increasing demands, controlled supplies, and global political unrest have adversely affected agricultural productivity and farm profitability across the globe and Pakistan is not an exception. To cope with this issue of energy deficiency in agriculture, the best alternate strategy is to take advantage of biomass and solid waste potential. In low-income countries such as Pakistan, the greenhouse heating system mostly relies on fossil fuels such as diesel, gasoline, and LPG. Farmers are reluctant to adopt greenhouse farming due to the continuously rising prices of the fossil fuels. To reduce reliance on fossil fuel energy, the objective of this study was to utilize biomass from crop residues to develop an efficient and economical biomass furnace that could heat greenhouses to protect the crop from seasonal temperature effects. Modifications made to the biomass furnace, such as the incorporation of insulation around the walls of the furnace, providing turbulators in fire tubes, and a secondary heat exchanger (heat recovery system) in the chimney, have increased the thermal efficiency of the biomass furnace by about 21.7%. A drastic reduction in hazardous elements of flue gases was observed due to the addition of a water scrubber smoke filter in the exit line of the flue. The efficiency of the biomass furnace ranged from 50.42% to 54.18%, whereas the heating efficiency of the diesel-fired heater was 71.19%. On the basis of the equal heating value of the fuels, the unit material and operating costs of the biomass furnace for wood, cotton stalks, corn cobs, and cow dung were USD 2.04, 1.86, 1.78, and 2.00 respectively against USD 4.67/h for the diesel heater. The capital and operating costs of the biomass furnace were about 50% and 43.7% of the diesel heater respectively, resulting in a seasonal saving of about 1573 USD. The produced smoke was tested as environmental friendly under the prescribed limits of the National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQS), which shows potential for its large-scale adoption and wider applications.

The agriculture and horticulture sector in the Netherlands is one of the most productive in the world. Although the sector is one of the most advanced and intense agricultural production systems worldwide, it faces challenges, such as climate change and environmental and social unsustainability of industrial production. To overcome these challenges, alternative food production initiatives have emerged, especially in large cities such as Amsterdam. Some initiatives involve producing food in the urban environment, supported by new technologies and practices, so-called high-tech urban agriculture (HTUA). These initiatives make cultivation of plants inside and on top of buildings possible and increase green spaces in urban areas. The emerging agricultural technologies are creating new business environments that are shape d by technology developers (e.g., suppliers of horticultural light emitting diodes (LED) and control environment systems) and developers of alternative food production practices (e.g., HTUA start-ups). However, research shows that the uptake of these technological innovations in urban planning processes is problematic. Therefore, this research analyzes the barriers that local government planners and HTUA developers are facing in the embedding of HTUA in urban planning processes, using the city of Amsterdam as a case study. This study draws on actor-network theory (ANT) to analyze the interactions between planners, technologies, technology developers and developers of alternative food production practices. Several concepts of ANT are integrated into a multi-level perspective on sustainability transitions (MLP) to create a new theoretical framework that can explain how interactions between technologies and planning actors transform the incumbent social–technical regime. The configuration of interactions between social and material entities in technology development and adoption processes in Amsterdam is analyzed through the lens of this theoretical framework. The data in this study were gathered by tracing actors and their connections by using ethnographic research methods. In the course of the integration of new technologies into urban planning practices, gaps between technologies, technology developers, and planning actors have been identified. The results of this study show a lacking connection between planning actors and technology developers, although planning actors do interact with developers of alternative food production practices. These interactions are influenced by agency of artefacts such as visualizations of the future projects. The paper concludes that for the utilization of emerging technologies for sustainability transition of cities, the existing gap between technology developers and planning actors needs to be bridged through the integration of technology development visions in urban agendas and planning processes.

Vor dem Hintergrund eines zunehmenden globalen Energiebedarfs und der Gefahr einer anthropogenen Störung des Klimasystems durch die Emission von Treibhausgasen gilt es, tragfähige Strategien und Perspektiven für eine nachhaltige Energieversorgung zu entwickeln. Der verstärkten Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien wird dabei vielfach eine Schlüsselrolle zur Bewältigung dieser Herausforderungen zugesprochen. Einer weit verbreiteten Ausschöpfung der auch in Deutschland in großem Maße verfügbaren Potenzialen an regenerativen Energieträgern stehen jedoch häufig noch die damit verbundenen hohen Kosten im Vergleich zu fossilen Energieträgern entgegen. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es daher zu untersuchen, welchen Beitrag erneuerbare Energieträger in einem wettbewerblichen Marktumfeld langfristig zur Energieversorgung leisten können und in welchem Umfang erneuerbare Energieträger durch die Internalisierung der Treibhausgasvermeidungskosten in den Energiepreisen profitieren können. Zur Bewertung der Rolle erneuerbarer Energieträger sind mit Blick auf das Gesamtenergiesystem Interdependenzen zwischen der Nutzung erneuerbarer Energieträger und den übrigen Sektoren des Energiesystems zu berücksichtigen. Neben der Vernetzung des Energiesystems in horizontaler Richtung durch Prozessketten über Sektoren hinweg und in vertikaler Richtung durch die Konkurrenz regenerativer mit fossilen Energietechnologien sind dabei auch Kopplungen über Energiepreise, deren Höhe über die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit einer regenerativen Energietechnologie entscheidet, sowie die energie- und preisseitigen Effekte durch Einführung energiepolitischer Instrumente zu beachten. Aufgrund dieser Systemzusammenhänge wird daher ein auf dem Ansatz der linearen Programmierung basierendes intertemporales Energiesystemmodell verwendet, in dem die Energiewirtschaft Deutschlands von der Primär- bis zur Nutzenergie technologisch detailliert abgebildet und hinsichtlich der Systemkosten optimiert wird. Um die Wechselwirkungen innerhalb des Energiesystems aufzuzeigen, werden sich z. T. ergänzende methodische Verfahren entwickelt und eingesetzt. Neben einem Bilanzierungsmodell zur Ermittlung von die Prozessvorketten berücksichtigender Indikatoren zählen hierzu ein auf der Dualitätstheorie beruhendes Verfahren zur Dekomposition der Energie- und Zertifikatspreise, Methoden der Sensitivitätsanalyse zur Ermittlung der fundamentalen preisbestimmenden Faktoren und Techniken der parametrischen Programmierung, um neben Variationen der Modelleingangsdaten Treibhausgasvermeidungskostenkurven und Angebotskurven regenerativ erzeugten Stroms unter Berücksichtigung der systemaren Zusammenhänge im Energiesektor abzuleiten. Mit Hilfe des entwickelten Energiesystemmodells und der Analysemethoden werden die zukünftigen Entwicklungsperspektiven erneuerbarer Energien im deutschen Energiesystem bis zum Jahr 2050 szenariogestützt untersucht. In den Szenarien werden einerseits die mit einer Quote erneuerbarer Energien in der Stromerzeugung verbundenen energie-, kosten- und emissionsseitigen Auswirkungen betrachtet und andererseits der Beitrag erneuerbarer Energien in Konkurrenz mit alternativen Minderungsoptionen zur Erreichung von Treibhausgasminderungszielen dargestellt. Weiterhin werden in simultanen Variationen die Wechselwirkungen zwischen beiden Instrumenten und ihre Auswirkungen speziell auf die Stromerzeugungsstruktur und die Strompreise beleuchtet. Against the background of an increasing global energy demand and the danger of an anthropogenic disturbance of the climate system by the emission of greenhouse gases, it is necessary to develop sustainable strategies and perspectives for the future energy system. The increased usage of renewable sources is identified from many sides as a key element in strategies to overcome these challenges. However, a widely utilisation of the also in Germany large existing potentials of renewable energy carriers is currently still opposed by the associated high costs relative to fossil energy sources. The intention of the submitted thesis is to analyse the contribution of renewable energy sources in the long-run under competitive market conditions to the energy supply and to study the extent to which renewable energy sources can benefit from the internalisation of greenhouse gas abatement costs in the energy prices. To assess the role of renewable energy sources in the context of the entire energy system, interdependencies between the utilisation of renewable energy sources with other aspects and sectors of the energy system have to be taken into account. In addition to the interconnectedness of the energy system in the horizontal direction by process chains across sectors and in the vertical direction by the competition of renewable with conventional fossil technologies also the linkage by energy prices, which serve as benchmark for the competitiveness of a renewable energy technology, and the energy and price related effects caused by the introduction of policy instruments have to be considered. Due to these interactions within the system, a linear programming based dynamic energy system model is used, which depicts technologically detailed the German energy sector from the primary energy supply to the end-use energy demand side and optimises the energy system with respect to its total costs. In order to reveal the interactions and dependencies within the energy system, several partially complementary methodologies have been developed and applied to the model. Apart from a balance model that allows the calculation of specific indicators under consideration of previous process chains, the methodology comprises a method for decomposing energy and certificate prices based on the duality theory, the method of sensitivity analysis to identify the fundamental price-determining activities and parametric programming techniques to derive greenhouse gas abatement cost curves and renewable electricity supply cost curves. With the help of the developed energy system model and analysis tools, the future development perspectives of renewable energy in the German energy system until the year 2050 are studied in various scenarios. In these scenarios, on the one side the energy-, cost- and emission related effects associated with a quota for the electricity production from renewable sources are studied, on the other side the contribution of renewable energy sources to given greenhouse gas abatement targets in competition with alternative abatement measures is examined. Furthermore the interdependencies between these two policy instruments on each other and their effects on the structure of the electricity sector and on the electricity prices are highlighted.

The assessment of the ‘quality’ of built heritage is a complex transdisciplinary issue, which both public administrations and real estate developers need to carefully consider when making any interventions. Recent international climate regulations underline that currently around 75% of buildings in the EU are not energy efficient. In Italy, those inefficient buildings are more than 50 years old and, if subjected to retrofit interventions, risk being totally transformed and losing their historical value in favor of a more contemporary use. This work aimed to study the residential heritage of the second half of the 20th century in the real estate market and to understand if, how, and in what measure the building and architectonical qualities are recognized and monetized by buyers. The city of Turin was chosen as a study area, and residential building qualities were analyzed using two quality indicators to perform a GWR on market POIs. The results highlighted that housing historical qualities are not homogeneously recognized by the real estate market, in favor of green ones. This work can help both public and private bodies to identify which ‘invisible’ quality residential buildings are immediately exploitable for enhancement strategies, with more respectful retrofitting interventions and a modern protection policy.

Abstract In this paper, we discuss a number of ways to define and measure the affordability of energy consumption, and we examine the emergence of energy poverty in Italy in the period from 1998 to 2011. The paper examines the eligibility criteria for claiming the benefits available to support energy consumption for vulnerable families and it identifies the potential beneficiaries. The study assesses the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria by comparing the population targeted by the policy with the population actually facing affordability problems. A simulation exercise, using the hypothetical scenario most likely to result in energy benefits being made available, shows that, regardless of the affordability index adopted, the provision of state energy benefits has little impact on fuel poverty.