A Preliminary Model for Promoting Energy Communities in Urban Planning

Abstract

Renewable energy communities (REC) represent an important opportunity to promote the use of energy from renewable sources and the buildings efficiency, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, more generally, to combat energy poverty, exacerbated by the recent pandemic and rising energy prices. Although the topic of energy communities is still little explored in municipal planning, the latter can make a significant contribution in their promotion. The aim of this work is the definition of a preliminary model for the construction of a priority areas map, in which to plan the development of REC on an infra-urban scale, in the Italian geographical context. This map makes it possible to identify critical urban areas both in terms of energy performance and income vulnerability, in order to maximize the benefits brought by the REC establishment, with particular reference to the reduction of energy poverty. To this end, in the absence of open data for the estimation of the buildings energy performance, a bottom-up approach is proposed that exploits the technological advances offered by GIS and BIM software, requesting input data normally available in urban planning processes.