PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the efforts undertaken by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in deploying renewable energy (RE), in terms of capacity assessments, research and development activities, and current and planned projects. The paper also aims to investigate the drivers and barriers for the diffusion of RE technologies in the GCC.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides a literature‐based study on the status of the RE sector in the GCC, including capacities, projects, policies and frameworks in the GCC, in addition to an analysis of the main drivers and barriers to RE deployment arising from the literature.FindingsThe results of this paper illustrate growing interest in renewable energy in the GCC countries at the R&D and project implementation level.Originality/valueThe paper contributes by the provision of the latest knowledge on the status of the RE sector in the GCC and by highlighting the most significant drivers fuelling RE deployment, as well as the barriers currently hindering the greater diffusion of RE technologies in the region.

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the most appropriate multidisciplinary data sources related with energy optimization decision support as well as the related methodologies, tools and techniques for data capturing and processing for each of them. Design/methodology/approach – A review is conducted on the state-of-play of decision support systems for energy optimization, focussing on the municipal sector, followed by an identification of the most appropriate multidisciplinary data sources related with energy optimization decision support. An innovative methodology is outlined to integrate semantically modeled data from multiple sources, to assist city authorities in energy management. Findings – City authorities need to lead relevant actions toward energy-efficient neighborhoods. Although there are more and more energy and other related data available at the city level, there are no established methods and tools integrating and analyzing them in a smart way, with the purpose to support the decision-making process on energy use optimization. Originality/value – A novel multidimensional approach is proposed, using semantic technologies to integrate data from multiple sources, to assist city authorities to produce short-term energy plans in an integrated, transparent and comprehensive way.

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