Energy for cities: Supply, demand and infrastructure investment

Abstract

Energy is essential to all activities in all regions of a country. However the density of energy use in, and our economic dependence on, cities means that it is more critical for urban areas. Nevertheless we suggest that the provision of energy for urban areas cannot be considered separately from the national context. We will demonstrate how to assess the ability of a nation to invest in energy infrastructure for the benefit of cities. Our approach exploits data sets which are available in most industrialised countries, and we select two quite different case studies to illustrate our method: the Colombia (Bogota) and UK (London). Our focus for energy sustainability in cities is quality of life and reduced fossil-fuel emissions. We will show that the main target for cities should be to improve air quality and reduce energy demand by improving energy efficiency.