Energy transition: How is the energy transition impacting our cities and their hinterlands?

Accomplishing the energy transition is one of the great challenges of the 21st century.

Navigation

Our planet has plenty of renewable energy resources. Yet, the production requires much more space than producing energy from fossil fuels. Our research addresses the spatial challenges of renewable energy production on 4 different scales: The building, the neighbourhood, the city and regional scale.

The transition to renewable energy systems has to be carefully prepared and it will only happen incrementally. It has to be implemented undeterred by socio-economic uncertainties and in consideration of other, for example climate change related urban challenges.

Especially in places, where space is a limited resource, we need to think carefully about where and how the transition can be achieved and take into account the implications that souring of renewables has on a site, local practices, ecosystems, and livelihoods. By investigating these challenges through the building, the neighbourhood, the city and the region, our research offers a unique and spatially comprehensive study that allows us to recognise energy linkages across spaces and with that the complex spatial entanglements of the energy transition.

Building Scale

On the scale of the building, the energy transition implies a democratisation and decentralisation of energy generation and storage, including for example energy producing roofs and facades (BIPV), connected buildings and load sharing (microgrids), V2G and electric mobility, turning your house into a personal “power-bank”-station.

Through building integration, renewable energy generation also becomes visible in the city, which requires their careful design. New technologies, including active facades and learning-based control systems can turn fossil-fuel dependent cities into sustainable and self-regulating systems. Our research addresses holistic, multi-​scale and interdisciplinary approaches for assessing large scale deployment of BIPV taking into account different climatic, socio-​economic and urban conditions.

Neighbourhood Scale

In a high-density urban environment where land is scarce, renewable energy technologies, such as solar photovoltaics, compete with other important urban functions, such as greenery and farming. In order to create a sustainable and liveable urban environment, it is therefore crucial to utilise space most efficiently for the deployment of solar energy. We develop an optimization model that utilises smart energy management strategies to minimise the amount of space for photovoltaics installation within a larger building community. Those strategies include energy storage via electric and thermal storage battery, energy sharing via power microgrid and district cooling pipeline, and demand-side management via shifting energy demand from the peak hours to the off-peak hours. The computational results of a case study conducted in a building cluster in the campus of the National University of Singapore (NUS) indicate that those smart energy management strategies can potentially reduce the amount of space for solar photovoltaics by up to 28%. The saved space can be used for other urban functions such as greenery and farming.

City Scale

On the city scale, we need to have strategies in place that allow us to harness all available renewable energy potentials in accordance with existing and future urban functions including housing, industry and commercial areas and open space. Only in consideration of all available resources and their implications can we create planning guidelines that lead to socio-ecologically resilient cities and integrated and diversified energy systems. Our research addresses the renewable energy potentials in cities. We have created a comprehensive analysis of Singapore’s energy potentials and investigated possible implications of renewable energy deployment lifecycles to inform urban design decisions.

Our Energy Potential Maps for Singapore form the basis of new urban design guidelines that maximize the amount of locally sourced energy. These maps have been created in collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Regional Scale

On a larger scale, renewable energy production currently contributes to a radical transformation of vast landscapes. In Southeast Asia (SEA), for example, solar and wind power as well as bioenergy produced from agricultural waste are operationalised in agriculturally dominant areas. These rapidly expanding practices restructure or replace agricultural businesses and supply chains that support subsistence farming. Our research addresses the various modes in which the energy transition is transforming large territories in SEA and devises ways in which it can take place while fostering sustainable, inclusive and equitable development.



Sustainable Development Goals

Find out more about SDG's on the offical United Nations website.

Who can tell me more?

Powering the City

Future Resilient Systems

Potential Agriterritories: Agrarian Questions under Planetary Urbanisation and Agroecological Transitions

Related Publications

Timeline

${label} ${label}

Future Cities Laboratory Global

Welcome to FCL Global, an interdisciplinary research programme that seeks to address the worldwide circumstances of rapid urbanisation. Our ultimate goal is to promote more equitable and livable urban futures, by bringing together Science, Design, Engineering and Governance.

Contact Us

Stay informed

Visit the outreach section to stay on top of on recent news, developments, publications and upcoming events at Future Cities Laboratory Global.

Outreach

Newsletter Signup