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This dissertation examines the concept of sustainable energy within a urban design context. In essence, the research aims to answer the question: “what role does the city’s built environment morphology play, if any, in the sustainability of its energy system?”. To answer this question, I first derive an operational definition of sustainable energy in the post carbon era: maintaining the capability to provide non-declining energy services in time. Providing non-declining energy services, in an urban design context, depends on urban morphologies ability to save and conserve energy, be efficient and produce energy from renewable sources without decrease the level of energy services. In other words we can think of a more sustainable energy urban built environment as one that saves energy, is efficient and produces energy from renewable resources per unit of throughput, with energy sustainability measured by urban morphologies energy performances and throughput measured by land unit. This is a normative framework. It can only indicate relative levels of sustainable energy of urban morphologies. Within a specific urban system this framework can allow us to measure which part of the city produce more sustainable energy urban patterns. To employ this framework I utilize a Spatial Pattern Oriented Modelling approach. The energy performance of an urban morphology metric comes from its basis in the international debate on urban energy sustainability, its ability to account for a specific aspect of sustainable energy and the possibility for its derivation from the spatial pattern analysis. Drawing from the large research based on exploring the role of the urban morphology on urban energy system, I derived several spatial patterns indicators that assess the influence of urban morphology on energy performances of urban settlements. These spatial patterns metrics, combined, enable the exploration of sustainable energy within a given urban morphology configuration. I apply the framework to a case study area located in northern Italy between Alps, the transect Trento-Pergine-Valsugana, utilizing data from different sources and exploring the possibilities given by a high-resolution 3D spatial database, a LiDAR survey, and by a geolocalized human activities database, internet 2.0, for the urban morphology analysis with focus to energy. The Principal Component Analysis is used to estimate the correlation between different spatial patterns indicators while a ranking system, based on arbitrary thresholds and classes, is used to visually compare the scores of different sustainable energy performances of urban morphologies.

The focus of the Ph.D. dissertation is on the thermal part of the energy planning issue since the space conditioning (heating and cooling – H&C) of buildings represents about 75% of the energy consumed by European residential buildings and only 16% of the heating and cooling consumption is covered by renewable energy sources (RES). At the same time, the increased complexity of the spatial planning process when energy issues are involved has made clear the need for new “energy-aware” tools and methods used in this field. The proposed methodology is GIS (Geographical Information System)-based and performed at regional scale given that the movement of energy planning activities from national to regional and local scale allows a much more detailed analysis of both the energy demand and supply, balancing them more effectively. The integration of the spatial dimension within energy analyses can also provide the decision-makers with a spatially-explicit approach towards the energy transition and the development of sustainable energy plans and strategies. The general aim of the Ph.D. thesis is to develop a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) allowing the decision-makers to take into account (during the planning process) both the improvement of the energy production from RES and the energy renovation of the existing building stock. The SDSS aims also to connect the energy planning (supply side) with spatial planning (demand side) by seeking synergies between the two fields. This connection is made taking advantage of the framework of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). The Ph.D. thesis is partially developed within a European co-financed project included in the Interreg Alpine Space programme. The GRETA project was designed to foster the use of shallow geothermal energy (SGE) in energy plans and strategies along the Alps. SGE is a low-carbon source for H&C of buildings, which exploits the heat stored within the ground, a local source widely available and less dependent from changes in time compared to other RES. Despite this, its exploitation is not yet diffused and its growth is limited mainly by factors such as scarce knowledge, complicated and fragmented legislation, and high installation costs. Considering all these issues, the research questions that shaped the Ph.D. activities are: ➢ How to estimate the thermal energy demand of the residential building stock at the regional scale, as a starting point for developing sustainable energy strategies aimed at the reduction of the thermal energy consumption in the existing buildings. ➢ How to integrate this appraisal in the energy planning of a region in order to elaborate different scenarios for the energy balance between thermal demand and supply, fostering the use of shallow geothermal energy (SGE) that is a renewable source still not well-known and not exploited. ➢ How to encourage the connection between energy planning and spatial planning towards the common goal of sustainable energy transition, helping to fill the gap between the development of plans and strategies and their implementation, thanks to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) framework. The proposed methodology has been applied in a case study, i.e. Valle d’Aosta, an Italian alpine region. Almost all the data processing is performed with open-source software (GRASS GIS, QGIS, Python, and R) and applying a spatially-explicit approach, for pushing the integration of the spatial dimension in the energy analysis. The spatial units of analysis are the single building and the census tract. The single building has been chosen as the smallest unit available for ensuring a better characterization of the thermal energy demand and of the potential energy production from SGE. Moreover, the scenario analysis for the energy renovation of buildings is better performed at the building level; so, it is particularly suitable for developing an SDSS. Nevertheless, some data processing is done at the census tract level, using aggregated and statistical information to estimate the required values at the building level. The reason for this twofold scale of analysis is that the data availability often changes depending on time, space and data provider. For instance, for the case study area only little data was available at the building level for the whole region. Therefore, the methodology integrates data from different sources to fill this knowledge gap. The methodology applied in the case study is divided into two parts: 1) The first one concerns the data collection and processing for the spatial estimation of the space heating demand of the existing building stock. At the end of it, the technical and economic suitability of SGE (performed within the GRETA project) for covering the energy demand of buildings and replacing some fossil fuels is evaluated. 2) The second one is carried out in the framework of SEA, by defining common objectives and developing scenarios for the integration of SGE in the energy planning process, as the short-term objective, and the coordination of energy and spatial planning goals, as the long-term objective. In the Ph.D. thesis, SEA is intended as a conceptual framework for integrating energy and spatial planning, rather than as an evaluation tool. The main outputs of the Ph.D. thesis are: (i) the spatial evaluation of the space heating demand of each residential building of the case study, without using the “archetypes approach”; (ii) the development of a method for the integration of data from different sources and for its estimation if missing at the building level; (iii) the use of SEA as a framework for connecting energy planning and spatial planning fields, to support strategic decision-making processes. Even though the Ph.D. case study is a typical alpine region, (iv) the developed methodology can be applied at different scales and not only on alpine regions but potentially in every kind of context. Since it strongly depends on the availability of data, the replicability of the methodology is quite high. The main expected impacts of these outputs are: (1) SDSS allows to reach a trade-off between the number of input data and the level of detail often required by decision-makers; (2) SDSS can support the decision-makers allowing them to analyse from various viewpoints different energy scenarios and also to localise where is better to address the energy measures; (3) the results at the building level represent a starting point for defining and developing strategies for the energy transition of settlements at different scales; (4) SEA used as a strategic tool for integrating energy and spatial planning, by coordinating strategic objectives, and linking the thesis outputs to the energy decision-making process.

Due to a controversial historical and political background and the prolonged socioeconomic crisis, the culture of collaboration and dialogue is not cultivated at any governance level in Greece. On the contrary, the conventional self-financed real-estate development model is deeply rooted within Greek society—planning regulation supports greenfield development instead of implementing urban renewal or compact-city policies. As a result, Greek cities are affected by sprawl and, often, illegitimate development tendencies. In order to effectively cope with such urban problems, there is an idea of introducing a communicative rationality approach—a tool towards promoting a resilient governance system. However, since collaborative dialogue, networks and trustful relationships among the relevant players build the core of communicative rationality, it is rather challenging to implement an approach in Greece such as a fuzzy-governance context. The paper revolves around two main questions: How can tailor-made initiatives transcend the current sociopolitical obstacles in Greece and contribute to resilient spatial development? How could the country absorb the social, political and intellectual capital in practice that is produced by collaborative initiatives? The central part of the research is the case study presenting the informal planning method (called the Test Planning Process), applied for the first time in the Greek planning context in the city of Patras. Elucidating the role of various actors involved in the process, the paper shows how collaboration in consecutive steps, based on expertise and impartial participation, may reverse irrational decisions, thus promoting the gradual development of an informal approach to spatial planning.

Smart energy city (SEC) development is a component of the urban development initiative smart city, which has been a popular response to the global energy challenge in Europe during the past two decades. SEC development aims to increase the sustainability of urban energy systems and services. Since 2011, SEC development has been supported by the European Commission as part of the Strategic Energy Technology plan (SET-Plan) and through the European Union Programmes for Research and Technological Development (specifically FP7 and Horizon 2020). This, along with the promising vision of SEC development and considerable financial support by the private sector, has encouraged numerous European cities to initiate SEC projects. Successful implementation of these projects at the urban scale is crucial to achievement of urban energy objectives and sustainability of future urban development. The here presented thesis aims to support urban decision-makers towards successful implementation of urban scale smart energy city development in Europe. The study includes three stages. The first stage is dedicated to conceptual analysis. Within this stage, I conceptualized smart city through a keyword analysis of existing literature on the concept. Then, within the context of the smart city concept, I defined SEC development through literature review and expert knowledge elicitation. The second stage is dedicated to empirical investigation. Using the definition of SEC development, I distinguished and investigated 43 previously implemented SEC projects to identify common barriers that hinder successful implementation of SEC development. In addition, I proposed a new multi-dimensional methodology that allows a simultaneous prioritization of barriers against their probability, the level of impact, scale, origin, and relationship with other barriers. The third stage of the thesis is dedicated to learning methodologies that allow efficient transfer of knowledge from the past SEC experiences to the new SEC developments. I introduced the application of two learning methodologies that support decision-makers to predict barriers to the implementation of a new SEC project: case-based learning and decision tree learning. The former predicts barriers based on internal similarities between the new SEC project and the past projects. The latter uses the past projects and creates a predictive model for each barrier based on internal and external project characteristics. These models are later used to predict barriers to a new SEC project. Both methodologies were tested in a new SEC project, named SINFONIA. The conceptual analysis revealed that application of information and communication technologies, the collaboration of multiple stakeholders, integration of multiple urban domains, and sustainability evaluation are the constant characteristics (i.e. principles) of smart city and SEC development. It resulted in, to the best of my knowledge, the first multi-dimensional and comprehensive definition of SEC development, revealing its principles, objectives, domains of intervention, stakeholders, time and spatial dimensions. Furthermore, a list of smart energy solutions in each SEC domain of intervention was provided. The empirical investigation of the past SEC projects resulted in the identification of 35 common barriers to the implementation of SEC development, categorized in policy, administrative, legal, financial, market, environmental, technical, social, and information and awareness dimensions. The barrier prioritization showed that barriers related to collaborative planning, external funding of the project, providing skilled personnel, and fragmented ownership should be the key action priorities for SEC project coordinators. Application of case-based learning methodology resulted in identifying five past SEC projects that were the most similar to the SINFONIA project in terms of project internal characteristics. Investigating the barriers to the similar projects revealed that fragmented ownership is the most probable barrier to implementation of SINFONIA project. Application of the decision trees methodology resulted in generation of 20 barrier models, four of which showed a very good performance in prediction of barriers: lack of values and interest in energy optimization measures, time-consuming requirements by European Commission concerning reporting and accountancy, economic crisis, and local unfavorable regulations for innovative technologies. None of these four barriers were predicted to occur in the SINFONIA project. The application of this method in the SINFONIA showed a higher predicting power when a barrier was absent. The findings of the here presented thesis contribute to successful implementation of SEC development by supporting decision-makers in different phases of SEC projects. The results of the conceptual analysis contribute to a common understanding and foster the dialogue on the concept among various SEC stakeholders, particularly decision-makers and urban planners. The results of the empirical investigation lead to a better comprehension and evaluation of the barriers to the implementation of SEC projects in order to efficiently allocate resources to mitigate barriers. The proposed learning methodologies proved to be promising in helping decision-makers to identify similar projects to a new SEC development and to predict barriers to the implementation of new SEC projects. The thesis concludes that SEC is an outstanding urban development that can make a valuable contribution to the sustainability of urban energy systems. The specific characteristics of SEC development pose new challenges to the future smart and sustainable urban planning. Nevertheless, SEC development brings about unprecedented opportunities for integration and application of advanced quantitative techniques with current urban planning methods. This allows efficient knowledge transfer in not only intra-urban but also inter-urban levels in order to provide a collaborative, integrated and constructive movement towards successful implementation of SEC projects and sustainability of future urban development.