- Energy demand assessment of European urban structures based on a multi-scale approach   254 kb by    Rapp, Florian & Keim, Christian & Viejo Garcia, Pablo | frapp@eifer.org    Short Outline Taking into account the different scales of a city this approach intends to provide urban planners and decision makers with a feasible method for the assessment of the energy demand at higher scales than the scale of the building level. Abstract Climate change and energy consumption are becoming highly relevant themes for the development of urban planning strategies facing the action plans for CO2 reduction in cities. Most of the energy consumption takes place in cities but urban planners and decision makers still have an increasing need for consistent tools and methods to prepare answers for these challenges. In order to identify operational strategies to reduce the energy consumption within urban structures at the corresponding operational levels, integrative methods at different urban scales may offer a new approach of planning perspectives. The article reviews the different urban scales to be taken into account for urban energy demand assessment. Each operational level needs specific methods and thus different tools for different purposes. Moreover, methods able to deal with several scales at the same time are still missing. The authors argue towards the need of integrative approaches for the development of spatial energy demand models dealing with the city as a whole. The actual developments of spatial information systems allow obtaining the necessary data for the support of such an approach. In this article the estimation and localisation of the energy demand resulting from urban structures is discussed as an integrative approach on the base of neighbourhood typologies, taking into account the different effects coming from localisation and affiliation to macro and micro scales. Using comparative studies the impact of urban micro climatic conditions, neighbourhood structures and socio-economical characteristics are characterised. This approach intends to provide urban planners and decision makers with a feasible method for the assessment of the energy demand at higher scales than the scale of the building level. Finally the implementation of this method into the planning agenda should help to develop primary action plans for investment or refurbishment funding programs for a long-term planning perspective. Keywords Urban planning; Climate change; City structures; Neighbourhood; Energy demand; Multi-scale approach; Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2009: Low Carbon Cities   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper