Das Energiekonzept und die Beschlüsse der Bundesregierung zur Energiewende sind wichtige Weichenstellungen für die Gestaltung des zukünftigen Energiesystems. So soll u. a. die Energieeffizienz in dem Maße gesteigert werden, dass bis zum Jahr 2050 nur noch die Hälfte des Primärenergieverbrauchs im Vergleich zum Jahr 2008 benötigt wird. In Deutschland leben rund 75 % der Menschen in Städten. Daher sind Städte und Agglomerationen besondere Lebens-, Wirtschafts- und Kulturräume. Als solche verlangen sie nach einem zukunftsfähigen Energiesystem und müssen in hohem Maße energieeffizient ausgestaltet sein. Besonders relevant für die Steigerung der Energieeffizienz ist der Gebäudesektor: In den Wohn- und Nichtwohngebäuden bundesweit entstehen rund 35 % des Endenergieverbrauchs, etwa drei Viertel davon in Form von Wärme. Die von der Bundesregierung beschlossene Energiewende, also der Umbau der deutschen Energieversorgung auf Basis hoher Effizienz und mit weitgehender Nutzung erneuerbarer Energien, kann deshalb nur gelingen, wenn diese Wende nicht nur im Strom-, sondern auch im Wärmemarkt umgesetzt wird (sogenannte "Wärmewende"). Mit Blick auf das energie- und klimapolitische Ziel eines nahezu klimaneutralen Gebäudebestands bis zum Jahr 2050 sind neben einer gesteigerten Energieeffizienz die erneuerbaren Energien in weit größerem Maße in den Wärmesektor zu integrieren. Städte und Agglomerationen bieten aufgrund der großen Hebelwirkung die Möglichkeit, technologische und gesellschaftliche Innovationen ungleich schneller und wirksamer in die Praxis umzusetzen und damit die energiepolitischen Ziele der Bundesregierung zu erfüllen.

Bridging the technical and the economical worlds of the energy sector and establishing a solid understanding of today's energy supply as a complex system– with these missions in mind, the book at hand compactly describes the fundamentals of electrical power supply in a dialogue between technology and non-technology, between academia and practitioners, and between nations and continents. Today, energy supply is a complex global system – it is time for a dialogue of the disciplines. In this book, experts explain in an understandable manner the technical foundations and selected specific aspects of today's electrical power supply. Each chapter supplies a fundamental introduction in layman's terms to the topic and serves technical specialists both as a reference and as an opportunity to expand their knowledge. Practical examples and case studies complete the compendium. Technology and economics in the energy sector work on the same questions out of different perspectives. The increasing complexity and interconnections and the epochal upheavals in the energy sector make a comprehensive understanding of the energy sector as a system an essential requirement. This necessitates an ongoing and successful dialogue between the disciplines and between academia and practitioners. To that aim, this book serves both as a compact reference for everyone interested in the energy sector and as a true translation aid between the professional disciplines.

This book offers a selection of research papers and case studies presented at the 3rd international conference “Smart and Sustainable Planning for Cities and Regions”, held in December 2019 in Bolzano, Italy, and explores the concept of smart and sustainable planning, including top contributions from academics, policy makers, consultants and other professionals. Innovation processes such as co-design and co-creation help establish collaborations that engage with stakeholders in a trustworthy and transparent environment while answering the need for new value propositions. The importance of an integrated, holistic approach is widely recognized to break down silos in local government, in particular, when aimed at achieving a better integration of climate-energy planning. Despite the ongoing urbanization and polarization processes, new synergies between urban and rural areas emerge, linking development opportunities to intrinsic cultural, natural and man-made landscape values. The increasing availability of big, real-time urban data and advanced ICT facilitates frequent assessment and continuous monitoring of performances, while allowing fine-tuning as needed. This is valid not only for individual projects but also on a wider scale. In addition, and circling back to the first point, (big) urban data and ICT can be of enormous help in facilitating engagement and co-creation by raising awareness and by providing insight into the local consequences of specific plans. However, this potential is not yet fully exploited in standard processes and procedures, which can therefore lack the agility and flexibility to keep up with the pulse of the city and dynamics of society. The book provides a multi-disciplinary outlook based on experience to orient the reader in the giant galaxy of smart and sustainable planning, support the transposition of research into practice, scale up visionary approaches and design groundbreaking planning policies and tools.

All cities face a pressing challenge – how can they provide economic prosperity and social cohesion while achieving environmental sustainability? In response, new collaborations are emerging in the form of urban living labs – sites devised to design, test and learn from social and technical innovation in real time. The aim of this volume is to examine, inform and advance the governance of sustainability transitions through urban living labs. Notably, urban living labs are proliferating rapidly across the globe as a means through which public and private actors are testing innovations in buildings, transport and energy systems. Yet despite the experimentation taking place on the ground, we lack systematic learning and international comparison across urban and national contexts about their impacts and effectiveness. We have limited knowledge on how good practice can be scaled up to achieve the transformative change required. This book brings together leading international researchers within a systematic comparative framework for evaluating the design, practices and processes of urban living labs to enable the comparative analysis of their potential and limits. It provides new insights into the governance of urban sustainability and how to improve the design and implementation of urban living labs in order to realise their potential.

The promises and realities of digital innovation have come to suffuse everything from city regions to astronomy, government to finance, art to medicine, politics to warfare, and from genetics to reality itself. Digital systems augmenting physical space, buildings, and communities occupy a special place in the evolutionary discourse about advanced technology. The two Intelligent Environments books edited by Peter Droege span a quarter of a century across this genre. The second volume, Intelligent Environments: Advanced Systems for a Healthy Planet, asks: how does civilization approach thinking systems, intelligent spatial models, design methods, and support structures designed for sustainability, in ways that could counteract challenges to terrestrial habitability? This book examines a range of baseline and benchmark practices but also unusual and even sublime endeavors across regions, currencies, infrastructure, architecture, transactive electricity, geodesign, net-positive planning, remote work, integrated transport, and artificial intelligence in understanding the most immediate spatial setting: the human body. The result of this quest is both highly informative and useful, but also critical. It opens windows on what must fast become a central and overarching existential focus in the face of anthropogenic planetary heating and other threats—and raises concomitant questions about direction, scope, and speed of that change. - The volume uses a cross-disciplinary approach to exploring digitally enhanced, spatially relevant sustainability systems - It critically queries the promise of information technologies and related support systems to help safeguard the habitability of the planet - The new edition is fully updated and reorganized in thematically linked yet stand-alone chapters and is referenced to global bodies of knowledge for ease of discovery and access - It includes copious images, maps, diagrams, and references to other media to enhance understanding

The concept of self-sufficiency involves the notion of sustainable, circular, and carbon-neutral cities. This book examines how urban planning can lead to greater self-sufficiency. It sheds light on how urban and regional circular and self-sufficiency development can effectively contribute towards the ultimate goals of the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 and the European Union (EU) Green Deal. It not only embraces the scientific fields of regional and urban studies but also addresses environmental sustainability-related and regional resilience aspects, such as renewable energy production, sustainable mobility, and the circular economy. This book offers a full toolkit of knowledge on how to effectively implement planning approaches for circular and self-sufficiency development at both urban and regional levels. It begins by presenting a theoretical framework and debate on urban and regional planning approaches that can effectively make cities and regions circular and self-sufficient in certain development domains, such as producing intra-city electric energy, sustainable mobility, and promoting a circular economy. Further, it advances a range of policy development proposals aiming at providing a comprehensive introduction to contemporary thinking about how cities and regions can design innovative planning and governance processes and, where appropriate, build capacity to implement systemic and integrated climate-neutral policies, building on existing place-based territorial capital and experiences developed by local and regional networks. The chapters are written by established authors in their respective domains. This book will thoroughly prepare students and provide knowledge to academics, researchers, and policymakers in the fields of urban and regional planning/development and studies, environmental sustainability, regional resilience, human geography, economic development, and public/EU/UN policies.