Speakers
Description
The built environment constitutes one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Strongly mitigating the negative climate impacts of buildings and infrastructure can therefore offer opportunities to move towards more sustainable and climate resilient futures. Lowering the overall energy needs of the built environment, as well as better coordinating the energy demand and supply of buildings and infrastructure are actions that can be taken to achieve this (Stoeglehner et al., 2011). Implementing these actions in the built environment, however, requires an alternative approach to energy within spatial planning; energy needs to play a more prominent role in decision-making related to the allocation and use of spatial functions than it has traditionally played in the past decades (Calvert et al., 2022; Kaza & Curtis, 2014; Kempenaar et al., 2021; Stoeglehner, 2020).
This article contributes to this gap in the planning literature. It engages with work on strategic spatial planning (Albrechts, 2004) to suggest that more strategic planning in the long- and short-term can promote energy transitions (Olesen, 2023). We develop the concept of strategic energy planning, which we define as a form of planning that systematically pays attention to the impacts of energy production, distribution, and consumption on spatial planning, and vice versa (Gerritsen, 2023). In our contribution, we argue that strategic energy planning is required on all relevant scales of decision-making to work towards more climate resilient futures, including the national, regional, and local levels (Krog & Sperling, 2019).
The paper then zooms in on the local level by exploring how strategic energy planning is enacted by planning actors working towards so-called Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) (Derkenbaeva et al., 2022). The article presents early insights from PED developments in four countries with variegated institutional and climate contexts: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal. We show that the types of technologies available to stakeholders and the extent to which policy frameworks have been developed for implementing PEDs vary considerably between national contexts. Based on our comparative and explorative study, we offer suggestions for improving strategic energy planning practices at the local level.
Bibliography
Albrechts, L. (2004). Strategic (Spatial) Planning Reexamined. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 31(5), 743–758. https://doi.org/10.1068/b3065
Calvert, K., Smit, E., Wassmansdorf, D., & Smithers, J. (2022). Energy transition, rural transformation and local land-use planning: Insights from Ontario, Canada. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 5(3), 1035–1055. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486211024909
Derkenbaeva, E., Halleck Vega, S., Hofstede, G. J., & van Leeuwen, E. (2022). Positive energy districts: Mainstreaming energy transition in urban areas. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 153, 111782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111782
Gerritsen, M. (2023). Energy and strategic energy planning. In K. Van Assche, R. Beunen, & M. Duineveld (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia in Urban and Regional Planning and Design (pp. 133–135). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800889002.000049
Kaza, N., & Curtis, M. P. (2014). The Land Use Energy Connection. Journal of Planning Literature, 29(4), 355–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412214542049
Kempenaar, A., Puerari, E., Pleijte, M., & van Buuren, M. (2021). Regional design ateliers on ‘energy and space’: Systemic transition arenas in energy transition processes. European Planning Studies, 29(4), 762–778. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2020.1781792
Krog, L., & Sperling, K. (2019). A comprehensive framework for strategic energy planning based on Danish and international insights. Energy Strategy Reviews, 24, 83–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2019.02.005
Olesen, K. (2023). Reviving strategic spatial planning for the challenges ahead. European Planning Studies, 31(11), 2318–2326. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2023.2231500
Stoeglehner, G. (2020). Integrated spatial and energy planning: A means to reach sustainable development goals. Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 17(2), 473–486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40844-020-00160-7
Stoeglehner, G., Niemetz, N., & Kettl, K.-H. (2011). Spatial dimensions of sustainable energy systems: New visions for integrated spatial and energy planning. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 1(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1186/2192-0567-1-2
| Keywords | strategic energy planning; positive energy districts; spatial planning; energy transition |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | Yes |
