Abstract Summary
Mayors and City leaders are very interested on innovative actions, practices, and ways to capture SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) alignment within their local strategies and to foster equity and sustainability for their communities. Positive Energy Neighbourhoods and Positive Energy Districts can act as lighthouses within a city transformation: They are concepts to showcase best practice in energy transition measures. However, research shows that it is notoriously difficult to define the character of so called “PEDs” exactly. Simply Positive – an international research project in the field of positive energy districts – tries to tackle this issue with a clear definition for existing neighbourhoods and districts in different countries and climates, which can be adjusted based on their special local context. Amsterdam is one of four so called “focus districts”, showcasing the application of positive energy balance assessments based on available data. The system boundaries of this assessment are approached from spatial, temporal, and functional perspectives: 1. Spatial means an actual physical boundary of included energy services and supplies. 2. Temporal system boundaries can be interpreted as the balancing period and are typically set to one operational year. 3. Functional system boundaries are used to identify specific energy functions, uses, or demands to be included or excluded according to function, rather than spatial proximity. They can be roughly categorized into three groups: (1) involving operational energy and user electricity, (2) addressing mobility aspects, and (3) accounting for embodied energy and emissions. Within simply positive project, Amsterdam was defined as focus district over its full size and took the following two major city goals as targets: (1) to obtain 550 MW on roofs till 2030; and (2) all buildings natural gas free till 2040. Amsterdam focuses thereby on urban PV maximization, where a very realistic PV and PV-T potential for the whole city is established. Within the presentation we will show the identified available data and the context for Amsterdam’s PED energy balance assessment, and how this might differ to the other focus districts of the project, being based in Italy, Romania, and Austria. Only with a clearly formulated and operational theoretical framework of effort-sharing is it possible to interlink and motivate on an international level the pursuit of highly innovative and ambitious project solutions and their replication.
