Towards the development of a net-zero energy district evaluation approach: A review of sustainable approaches and assessment tools

Koutra, Sesil; Becue, Vincent; Gallas, Mohamed-Anis; Ioakimidis, Christos S.

doi:10.1016/j.scs.2018.03.011

Cited by 72 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Over time, sustainability aspirations in urban planning such as healthy living, reduced carbon emissions, and general environmental stewardship have culminated in the idea of the net ZED. A variety of ZED definitions have been proposed (Aghamolaei, Shamsi, Tahsildoost, & O'Donnell, ; Carlisle, Van Geet, & Pless, ; Koutra, Becue, Gallas, & Ioakimidis, ; Marique & Reiter, ), generally motivated by a combination of two objectives: a desire for more stringent carbon emission reductions and a developing concern for energy security, including self‐sufficiency and community resiliency. A general definition for a ZED is a district that generates as much energy as it consumes over an annual horizon, but ZEDs focused on carbon emissions may also aspire to be “zero carbon districts,” completely eliminating on‐site fossil fuel consumption or using carbon credits to offset remaining emissions (Carlisle et al, ).…”

Section: Sustainable District Planning Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated distribution system and urban district planning with high renewable penetrations

Doubleday

Hafiz

Parker

et al. 2019

WIREs Energy & Environment

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Recent efforts to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have resulted in the development of sustainable, smart districts with highly energy efficient buildings, renewable distributed energy resources (DERs), and support for alternative modes of transportation. However, there is typically little if any coordination between the district developers and the local utility. Most attention is paid to the district's annual net load and generation without considering their instantaneous imbalance or the connecting network's state. This presents an opportunity to learn lessons from the design of distribution feeders for districts characterized by low loads and high penetrations of DERs that can be applied to the distribution grid at large. The aim of this overview is to summarize current practices in sustainable district planning as well as advances in modeling and design tools for incorporating the power distribution system into the district planning process. Recent developments in the modeling and optimization of district power systems, including their coordination with multi-energy systems and the impact of high penetration levels of renewable energy, are introduced. Sustainable districts in England and Japan are reviewed as case studies to illustrate the extent to which distribution system planning has been considered in practice. Finally, newly developed building-to-grid modeling tools that can facilitate coordinated district and power system design with utility involvement are introduced, along with suggestions for future research directions.

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Section: Sustainable District Planning Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrated distribution system and urban district planning with high renewable penetrations

Doubleday

Hafiz

Parker

et al. 2019

WIREs Energy & Environment

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“…This methodology is used, for example, by Reference [73]. Koutra et al [74] compare different software solutions for planning net-zero energy districts against the background of the EU climate strategies & targets. They find a variety of tools that could be used for the assessment and present one they developed themselves that is evaluated based on various case studies.…”

Section: Dynamic Valuation Of the Environmental Impact Of District Enmentioning

confidence: 99%

District Energy Systems: Challenges and New Tools for Planning and Evaluation

Wehkamp

Schmeling²,

Vorspel

et al. 2020

Energies

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The change from a centralized to a decentralized energy supply creates new challenges in the planning of such energy supply concepts. Specialized planning tools that can cope with the complex requirements and multi-layered boundary conditions of local energy use are therefore needed. Existing methods need to be further developed and optimized to suit the complex stakeholder structures encountered in innovative district projects, as well as for research purposes. This paper presents selected aspects and challenges in the development of an application-oriented planning tool. Using a North German district as a case study, the usability of a Building Information Model as an aggregated data platform is tested in the context of a residential energy district planning process. In addition, the modeling of heating grids using a combination of Geographic Information System and open source thermodynamic tools is presented. Economic valuation methods are examined to determine the extent to which the value of flexibility and access to local flexibility markets can be taken into account. Finally, an approach for evaluating the ecological aspects of the district energy supply is presented, based on the dynamic assessment of imported and exported energy quantities.

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“…At the level of evaluation of the Zero Energy city concept, [44] provides an overview of the existing assessment tools and methods, comparing their criteria and key parameters. Similarly, [45] reviews the crucial role of building performance simulation to reach building's zero energy status.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic evaluation of Nearly Zero Energy Cities

Villa-Arrieta

Sumper

2019

Applied Energy

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As a contribution to the study of the urban energy transition, this paper proposes a novel model of energy-economic evaluation of the cities self-sufficiency and presents its application in the form of a case study. The objective of this study was to analyse the scope of the investment in the photovoltaic self-consumption of buildings in order to promote the creation of Prosumers communities within the cities. The operation of this model is based on the scalability of the Nearly Zero Energy concept from buildings to cities and seeks to evaluate Nearly Zero Energy Cities (nZEC): cities made up of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) and other installations of distributed generation to cover their energy demand by use of local renewable resources to the detriment of external resources. By using public data, we apply this model with the aim of economically evaluating the investment of six packages of energy rehabilitation and photovoltaic selfconsumption in 17% of the residential buildings (37,800

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Towards the development of a net-zero energy district evaluation approach: A review of sustainable approaches and assessment tools

Cited by 72 publications

References 31 publications

Integrated distribution system and urban district planning with high renewable penetrations

Integrated distribution system and urban district planning with high renewable penetrations

District Energy Systems: Challenges and New Tools for Planning and Evaluation

Economic evaluation of Nearly Zero Energy Cities

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