Residential Energy Transition of Amsterdam Nieuw West neighbourhoods

Abstract

The starting point of this research is the urgent need for reducing the current energy consumption and CO2 emissions, that is vital to mitigate climate change and the limitation of energy sources. This target can be achieved by creating more sustainable cities, since nowadays, the built environment, of which residential buildings occupy the largest part, consumes huge amounts of energy worldwide, and have a major impact on CO2 emissions.

Based on the vision of City-Zen project of creating fully sustainable and energy (carbon) neutral smart cities, and the European commission’s goal of reducing carbon emissions by 80-95% by 2050, the need for innovative solutions regarding energy efficient residential retrofitting is growing. At the same time, different and complex methods to define sustainable measures, actions and interventions are used. The current research, aims to contribute at the City-Zen project for creating a structured energy urban planning approach, by answering the following question:

Which is the methodology leading to the design of a roadmap that helps to define which energy systems and retrofit measures should be applied where and when, on residential neighbourhoods of Amsterdam Nieuw West until 2050, for achieving their energy transition and CO2 emissions reduction?

The answer to the research question is given by developing an energy urban planning 4-step methodology, and by formulating a catalogue of energy and retrofit measures for the building, neighbourhood and district scale. The four steps are defined as the 1) mapping the present, 2) the definition of the future energy targets, 3) the development of the strategy for selecting the suitable energy systems, and eventually 4) the design of the energy transition roadmap for selected neighbourhoods inside Amsterdam Nieuw West district.

This methodology is required to be followed step by step, applying the first three steps initially on the city scale for the sake of creating a smooth transition of the steps implementation process from city scale to neighbourhood scale. Furthermore, the same steps are applied on neighbourhood scale with minor changes, to get to the final step which is the roadmap design, comprised of 3 sub-steps. First of all, the roadmap suggests the selection of suitable energy systems for 2050 for each one of the selected neighbourhoods. The selections are based on several variables retrieved by literature review. These variables lead to solutions for smaller clusters of dwellings consisting the neighbourhoods, formulated by similar construction characteristics and ownership status. Secondly, description templates are provided, one for each energy system, listing the used energy retrofit measures in steps, and quantifying the changes in heat demand and in CO2 emissions according to each step. Finally, the collected retrofit solutions from the first two sub-steps are used in the final sub-step of defining the interventions on timeline. The changes in heat demand are visualised on 3-dimensional heat maps, showing the results of 5-year periods of retrofit actions, starting from today until reaching the final energy goal in 2050.