Making compatible energy planning with urban decision-making: Socio-energy nodes and local configuration

Abstract

This communication will develop a specific concept, the socio-energy node (SEN), to help understand energy assemblages in urban spaces. The SEN concept broadens the scope of planning to urban-energy interaction, the better to understand two main points. First, it informs questions about how to upgrade large energy networks and hybridize them with self-sufficient energy loops. Second, it aims to provide support for energy planners when modelling multi-actor energy systems. We therefore emphasize the importance of qualifying relationships between energy and urban-planning stakeholders and propose a method for implementing—and reconsidering—energy planning in cities, by breaking energy systems down into SENs and by studying how they “plug” together and into local configuration.