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The paper investigates the European space heating (SH) and domestic hot water (DHW) market in order to close knowledge gaps concerning its size. The stimulus for this research arises from incongruences found in SH and DHW market’s data in spite of over two decades of scientific research. The given investigation has been carried out in the framework of the Hotmaps project (Horizon 2020—H2020), which aims at designing an open source toolbox to support urban planners, energy agencies, and public authorities in heating and cooling (H&C) planning on country, regional, and local levels. Our research collects and analyzes SH and DHW market data in the European Union (EU), specifically the amount of operative units, installed capacities, energy efficiency coefficients as well as equivalent full-load hours per equipment type and country, with a bottom-up approach. The analysis indicates that SH and DHW account for a significant portion of the total EU energy utilization (more than 20%), amounting to almost 3900 TWh/y. At the same time, the energy consumption provided by district heating (DH) systems exceeds the one of condensing boilers. While DH systems applications are growing throughout the EU, the replacement of elderly, conventional boilers progresses at a slower pace.

© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionThe assessment of the agroenergy chain is a fundamental issue in the field of renewable energies, in particular for the substitution of alternative energy sources for fossil fuels in rural areas (Fiorese & Guariso 2010). In this framework, the relevant topics are the evaluation of the bioenergy demand/supply ratio and the quantification of the impact of biomass on ecological and socio-economic parameters (Steubing et al. 2010). Furthermore, the evaluation of the agroenergy chain must consider policy directives and the presence of fundings and regulation that can cause market distortion (Sonneborn 2004).The analysis of the biomass sector in holistic terms is quite complex given the proposed objectives and scale of results (Cornelissen et al. 2012). Territorial and technological characteristics can be highly differentiated among study areas and could introduce variation into assessments of agroenergy (Freppaz et al. 2004, Vettorato et al. 2011. The characteristics of the European region, particularly those of the Italian territorial area, coupled with the present forest landscape dynamics (Tattoni et al. , 2011 have suggested how the exploitation of wood-energy sources can achieve a high level of importance for bioenergy production in these areas (e.g., for a widespread relationship linking the agroforestry environment with the local population -Ramachandra 2009, Notaro & Paletto 2011). The variability of national forest areas in terms of geomorphology, species composition, facilities and socio-economic issues requires the use of flexible tools and Decision Support Systems (DSSs) to quantify the resources and to facilitate the communication between researchers, local stakeholders and policy makers in woodenergy planning activities as applied to the forest sector. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) approach appears to represent an appropriate tool for attaining this goal.Several studies have analysed GIS and spatial analysis instruments as tools for biomass chain evaluation at the European, national and local levels. Angelis-Dimakis et al. (2011) classify energy availability in terms of potential availability (according to the gross energy of the source), theoretical availability (the harvestable fraction) and exploitable availability (based on ecological and economic sustainability criteria). A state-of-the-art treatment of the topic of forest biomass availability at the European level was developed by Rettenmaier et al. (2008) who analysed the methodological approaches and input datasets used for bioenergy estimation. These authors classified the analytic process according to biomass typology (ecological, technical, economical, sustainable), biomass sources (e.g., residues, stem, stumps) and spatial-temporal variables (e.g., scale of analysis, time frame). Geomatic applications for biomass resource evaluation have been implemented by different authors (Chirici et al. 2007, Lasserre et al. 2011, Kotamaa et al. 2010). For example, Gallaun et al. (2010) have com...

The paper introduces and discusses an open-source spatial-based model (called r.green.solar) able to quantify the energy production from solar photovoltaic (PV) ground-mounted panels. Socio-economic and environmental impacts can be evaluated by the model. The model starts from the theoretical quantity of solar PV potential energy and estimates a reduction of total amount of energy based on legal, technical, recommended and economic constraints. Model outputs were used for a trade-off analysis between energy production and traditional crops for food/feed cultivation on not irrigated arable land. The model was tested at regional level for a Mediterranean context (Italy). The results confirm that the economic profitability of PV systems follows a north-south gradient, but the main impacts are related to local peculiaritiessuch as the disposal of not irrigated arable land and the presence of constraints, in particular the landscape maintenance, the morphological variables and the specialization indexand crop yields.

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