Developing and Monitoring a Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan for an Energy-Producing Community

The development, implementation and monitoring of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan require a significant amount of data and analysis, as well as an effective and comprehensive decision making process. This chapter presents the pilot application of the proposed “MPC+ (Map - Plan - Choose - Check)” framework, through the “Action3” Decision Support System, in a Greek energy-producing community. The pilot application is conducted in three phases, namely the development of the baseline emission inventory (Phase I), the creation and evaluation of alternative Scenarios of Actions (Phase II) and the monitoring of the actions and measures implemented (Phase III). The city's univocal economy orientation of energy production through lignite is considered as a basic, inhibitory factor towards sustainability. In this respect, the city has committed to implement a series of appropriate renewable energy and rational use of energy activities in its territory, laying balanced emphasis on the local energy and heat production, and the promotion and implementation of measures on energy savings. A significant part of the CO2 emissions' reduction will come from the installation of biomass district heating systems in local communities.

An Intelligent Decision Support System for Sustainable Energy Local Planning

The main scope of this chapter is to present the “Action3” Decision Support System that integrates the MPC+ approach (Map - Plan - Choose - Check), supporting local and regional authorities to the development, implementation and monitoring of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plan (especially within the framework of the Covenant of Mayors). The proposed intelligent system integrates three main modules, namely the “BEI-Action” for the development of the baseline emission inventory, the “MDS-Action” for the creation and evaluation of the alternative Scenarios of Actions aiming at the identification of the most promising Scenario, as well as the “SEC-Action” for the application of the “Methodological Approach for Monitoring SEC (Sustainable Energy Communities) Targets”. The system was developed using the “Java” programming language and the “NetBeans IDE” software development platform. Particular emphasis was laid on the system's design, so as to be user-friendly, combining intuitive menus and navigation throughout the steps of the system.

Decision Making in Local Energy Planning

The current financial and economic crisis, as well as the wider socioeconomic and environmental pressures, including climate change among others, put seriously into question the traditional development patterns. This is particularly true for the local and regional authorities, who face a number of challenges as regards growth, jobs and sustainability. These pressures create high expectations for coordinated actions and holistic interventions to address comprehensively the problems toward a competitive economy. In this context, this Chapter describes the main issues of the decision making in local energy planning. The policy context and relevant initiatives are outlined. A detailed review of existing methodologies for local energy planning, as well as standard techniques and methods (participatory approach, aspiration level, multi-criteria decision support, robustness analysis, indicator-based assessment frameworks) are presented. The need to support the local and regional authorities in the decision-making process for the development, implementation and monitoring of their Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans, especially within the framework of the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy (a first-of-its-kind global initiative of cities and towns) is highlighted.

Building Future “Smart Energy Cities”

In the process of building the future cities, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions are the key enablers. Although there are plenty of energy related data available in the cities, there are no established methodologies and validated tools to collect, integrate and analyse them so that they can support energy use optimization. In this context, the aim of this chapter is to present the Smart Cities IoT Platform. A “wireless telemetry cloud” over the city can be created, which facilitates the transferring of open data from the distributed sources (weather station, installed equipment, etc.). The proposed IoT Platform is composed of prediction models, scenarios and rules, as well as a database to store the data and results. With the Smart Cities IoT Platform, web-based applications can be created, customised to the specific characteristics and needs of end-users, including the fields of buildings, infrastructure, transport, generation and storage.

Making Sustainable Energy Communities a Reality

The aim of this chapter is to present a decision support framework for local energy planning, entitled “MPC+ (Map - Plan - Choose - Check)”. The proposed framework incorporates the development of the baseline emissions inventory, the identification and modelling of renewable energy and rational use of energy actions, as well as the creation of alternative Scenarios of Actions at the city level. The evaluation of alternative Scenarios is based on a multi-criteria ordinal regression approach. In addition, an extreme ranking analysis method is used, in order to examine robustness problems, estimating the best and worst possible ranking position of each Scenario. The MPC+ framework contributes to the selection of the most promising Scenario of renewable energy and rational use of energy actions, supporting the local - regional authorities in creating Sustainable Energy Communities (SEC). Finally, the “Methodological Approach for Monitoring SEC Targets” is introduced.