scholarly journals Modernizing Ontario’s thermal energy system through integration of district energy into Ontario’s planning process.

Author(s):  
Michael Joseph Lee

Energy is fundamental to the economic success and high quality of modern life because of its centrality to economic activity, comfort, and convenience. Significant opportunities for the environmental protection, economic development, and social well-being of communities can be found through the use of district energy systems over traditional means of heating and cooling for buildings. However energy considerations often come as an afterthought to land-use planning, inhibiting the capacity for greater district energy system use and development. The purpose of this work is to examine key components of the land-use planning process in Ontario, and provide recommendations to the provincial and municipal governments to better support district energy systems through land-use planning policies, plans, and tools.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Joseph Lee

Energy is fundamental to the economic success and high quality of modern life because of its centrality to economic activity, comfort, and convenience. Significant opportunities for the environmental protection, economic development, and social well-being of communities can be found through the use of district energy systems over traditional means of heating and cooling for buildings. However energy considerations often come as an afterthought to land-use planning, inhibiting the capacity for greater district energy system use and development. The purpose of this work is to examine key components of the land-use planning process in Ontario, and provide recommendations to the provincial and municipal governments to better support district energy systems through land-use planning policies, plans, and tools.


Author(s):  
Giulio Senes ◽  
Natalia Fumagalli ◽  
Paolo Ferrario ◽  
Roberto Rovelli ◽  
Raffaele Sigon

“Land take” is a process of land-use change in which the agricultural and natural land is taken by residential, industrial, infrastructure and other developments. This change causes the loss of a non-renewable resource, such as the agricultural/natural soil, and the relative natural, cultural and landscape resources. The growing awareness about the loss of ecosystem services related to land take led developed countries to try to reduce the quantity of land taken with new laws and regulations. The European Union has set the goal of zero land take by 2050. It is not only a problem of limiting and slowing down the phenomenon, but it is always clearer that the quality of the land taken has to be assessed and adequately considered during the land-use planning process. In fact, in some cases like in the Lombardy Region, the law focuses not only on reducing the amount of land take, but also on limiting the loss of land with “high qualities”, requiring municipalities to assess the productive, naturalistic and landscape qualities of the territory. In this paper, the authors develop, using the GIS technology, a methodology to define and calculate a composite “Land Quality Index” (LQI). The methodology has been applied to a case study in the Lombardy region and has allowed to assess the quality of the territory in a rigorous and transparent way using available official data. In order to take into account the relative importance that stakeholders and land-use planners can give to the different components of LQI, AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) has been performed ad 4 different scenarios have been developed. LQI can support the land-use planning process in an ex-ante evaluation of different transformations hypotheses and in the definition of “quality-based” quantitative thresholds and monitoring of their trend over the time.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-137
Author(s):  
Anna Grochowska ◽  
Martyna Małecka

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to identify compatibilities of land-use patterns resulting from adjacent functions within the rural commune of Oleśnica. The analysis was made based on the relevant studies of conditions and directions of spatial planning, as well as a field inventory. The results of the studies show that the applicable planning document became a potential source of spatial conflicts. On these grounds, a negative assessment was given to the functioning spatial planning system, which, according to the premises of spatial order and sustainable development, should prevent them. The existing incompatibilities are the result of issues with coordination of the local spatial policies. As a consequence, they cause an urban development chaos, lack of proper space shaping, environmental damage and lower the residents‘ quality of life.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlena Rogowska

Urban land-use planning guides the way cities look and grow. Good planning leads to orderly growth and helps shape goals and policies for development while addressing important social, economic and environmental concerns. The efficiency benefits that may be garnered by linking land use planning and energy planning remain largely untapped throughout Ontario. In the case of district energy (DE), the absence of a regulatory and policy framework at the national and provincial levels results in much uncertainty regarding the associated costs and benefits of DE relative to traditional energy delivery systems. The purpose of this work is to explore Ontario’s planning framework with respect to meeting energy needs at the community level – including electrical and thermal (heating and cooling) energy needs, providing broad recommendations to all three levels of government that could help facilitate the development of district energy systems and offer more consideration to integrated community energy solutions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlena Rogowska

Urban land-use planning guides the way cities look and grow. Good planning leads to orderly growth and helps shape goals and policies for development while addressing important social, economic and environmental concerns. The efficiency benefits that may be garnered by linking land use planning and energy planning remain largely untapped throughout Ontario. In the case of district energy (DE), the absence of a regulatory and policy framework at the national and provincial levels results in much uncertainty regarding the associated costs and benefits of DE relative to traditional energy delivery systems. The purpose of this work is to explore Ontario’s planning framework with respect to meeting energy needs at the community level – including electrical and thermal (heating and cooling) energy needs, providing broad recommendations to all three levels of government that could help facilitate the development of district energy systems and offer more consideration to integrated community energy solutions.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Miroslav Kopáček

Civic participation has an irreplaceable role in the land-use planning process because it contributes a practical perspective to expert knowledge. This article discusses whether there is actually a level of civic participation that can be considered optimal, which would allow experts to effectively obtain information from everyday users of the territory, who have the best practical knowledge of it; experts may also gain sufficient feedback on intended developments, based on knowledge about civic participation from representatives of individual municipalities. The article also proposes measures that can promote an optimal degree of participation in the land-use planning process. The fieldwork was conducted in the form of semi-structured interviews with the mayors of municipalities with a population of up to 2000 inhabitants in selected districts of the Ústí Region (Czech Republic). The results suggest that the optimal degree of civic participation in land-use planning should have a representative extent, so it should not merely be a matter of individuals, but also one of groups of dozens of people, and such groups should encompass a balanced variety of characteristics; an optimal level of civic participation should also provide the maximum number of relevant impulses. Measures that may secure and foster an optimal degree of civic participation in land-use planning include (1) striving to avoid preferring purely voluntary participation; (2) simultaneously utilizing various tools to engage inhabitants; (3) educating inhabitants on a regular basis; and (4) consistently communicating and providing feedback, while also searching for informal means of communication and discussion.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095624782110240
Author(s):  
Zlata Vuksanović-Macura ◽  
Igor Miščević

Citizen participation in the planning and decision-making process in the European post-socialist context is much debated. Still, the involvement of excluded communities in the urban planning process remains understudied. This paper presents and discusses the application of an innovative participatory approach designed to ensure active involvement of an excluded ethnic minority, the Roma community, in the process of formulating and adopting land-use plans for informal settlements in Serbia. By analysing the development of land-use plans in 11 municipalities, we observe that the applied participatory approach enhanced the inhabitants’ active participation and helped build consensus on the planned solution between the key actors. Findings also suggested that further work with citizens, capacity building of planners and administration, and secured financial mechanisms are needed to move citizen participation in urban planning beyond the limited statutory requirements.


Author(s):  
Ed Plant ◽  
Sue Capper

There are few standards or regulations to help stakeholders consider land use and development in the vicinity of existing pipeline systems. Land use planning that considers the existence of pipeline systems can support the planning for and provision of emergency services and pipeline integrity. This approach can also promote public safety and awareness through consistent and collaborative stakeholder engagement early in the land use planning process. In 2016, a CSA workshop was held with a variety of stakeholders impacted by land use planning around pipeline systems. The workshop identified that there was a need for consistency across the jurisdictions in the form of a national standard. The main goal of the new CSA Z663 standard is to provide guidance and best practices for land use planning and development. It also addresses roles, responsibilities and engagement of all stakeholders to help establish a consistent approach to land use planning. A review of CSA Z663 will illustrate how this document provides information, guidance and tools that are inclusive to all stakeholders. This paper will also highlight the history and key drivers behind the new CSA Z663 standard and provide an overview of the current scope and content. Finally, the paper will describe future considerations and additions to the standard.


Proceedings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
pp. 1127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Loureiro ◽  
Miika Rämä ◽  
Raymond Sterling ◽  
Marco Cozzini ◽  
Meritxell Vinyals ◽  
...  

Workshop organized by INDIGO project as a collaborative activity among EU funded projects in the area of District Heating and Cooling. The objective of the workshop was twofold: (1) to create a cluster of European funded projects working in the area of District Energy Systems; and (2) to create a networking opportunity in which to share experiences on the results and difficulties of the researches, and to identify synergies.


Author(s):  
Stefan Wischhusen ◽  
Gerhard Schmitz

In this paper, criteria which indicate the usage of transient models and dynamic simulation environments for such energy systems are presented. A complex energy system for heating and cooling of industrial facilities and industrial processes is presented as a reference model. A model of a hot water storage tank is presented, which is optimized for the simulation in whole years, in which a very accurate transient response at much quicker simulation times compared to conventional geometric models can be delivered. The model was validated with measurement data from a large cogeneration plant. In addition, the economical impact of system simulation is emphasized on by an optimization study carried out on a large industrial system. Furthermore, the impact of a transient system model is compared to that of a steady state approach of the same system.


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