Urban and Regional Planning adopting RES - Sitra

Making Cities Energy Efficient
• Shopping malls located far from the urban centres, which require personal
cars, increasing fuel consumption and emissions;
• Buildings that are located far from each other, far from the street where
the DHC network could exist, and are relatively small, which makes
the DHC system uneconomic. Thus centralised RES will not be an option
anymore;
• Individual heat pumps installed in the potential DHC distribution area
with potential CHP energy supply may increase the primary energy
consumption, not reduce as desired;
• Buildings casting shadows on other buildings, preventing solar power
and heating to be applied to the overshaded buildings
• Biomass combustion in individual buildings happens at low efficiency,
probably only at 20–30% efficiency, may be the main reason for particle
emissions in a neighbourhood, and has much higher primary energy
consumption and emissions than centralised combustion at an efficiency
of 80% and above;
• Electric heating usually has a much higher primary energy factor that
the heating modes based on fuel or DHC with CHP. Electric heating,
however, may be supported by the planner without purpose by neglecting
water circulation in radiators and floors of the buildings;
• Buildings with north-south direction may not get as much solar energy
as the ones with east-west direction;
• Individual cooling systems in buildings often have primary energy
factor and specific emissions higher than centralised cooling systems have.
The centralised systems (district cooling) may use waste heat to drive
absorption chillers and the cold sea/river/lake water to provide free cooling
with low emissions.
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