Solar Energy in Urban Planning: Lesson Learned and Recommendations from Six Italian Case Studies

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents six case studies of solar energy in urban planning in Italy. Among them two corresponds to existing areas, three to new urban areas and one to a landscape. The cases studies are presented and lesson learnt and recommandations are mades based on this analysis.

The work is very well written and is of great use for urban planners, or actors from municipalities that can find here concrete examples of what has been done.

I only have minor questions:
-Since these case studies only focus on Italian case study, it could be interesting, in the last part (limitations and recommandations) to try to highlight if there were common aspect (in good or bad) that were shared among all the project and that were directly related to the Italian framework (legislation, culture etc).

Author Response

Thanks to Reviewer 1 for the general appreciation of the manuscript and for the constructive feedback that we have followed.

A new section in the form of a table has been added (Table 3. Similarities and differences among the different built environments) to the new section 4.6. Similarities and differences among the different built environments. The aim to provide a comparison among and between the different environments described in the study. Specifically, similarities and differences are highlighted for existing environments, new environments and between new and existing environments.

We believed that it was better to have a new section on these aspects instead of including it in the "Limitations of the study" because of the lack of landscape PV case studies. This latter aspect has been highlighted in the "Limitation of the study" as follows: "More landscape PV case studies should be analyzed to provide a more complete and exemplary overview of this environment as well as a critical analysis of the similarities and differences."

Reviewer 2 Report

This study considers an analysis of the potential for integrating solar energy into a number of regions inside Italy focusing on 6 case studies. This summarizes results obtained from a large project and describes some of the challenges, the potential benefits and issues related leading to some general “lessons learned” which should be useful for future studies and work looking at the use of solar energy.

These results and the details of the case studies are interesting to read and show the problems, results and potential for solar energy in different types of area.

Comment 1) The English is good throughout the manuscript.

Comment 2) Perhaps my only criticism of this manuscript is that it is not clear how this study is different from the existing published research from this project. It appears that this is a summary of research results obtained from the project. However, it would be good to state this in the introduction. In addition I think it is necessary to clearly establish how this is different from previously published results. (i.e. clarify the novelty of this work) Potentially with some comparision/discussion against the other published results from this project.

Comment 3) The name and subsection of the project as mentioned in the abstract, however it would be good to add a reference for this in the abstract (although this is not common I think it would be good here)

If the issue from comment 2+3 can be addressed I think this would be suitable for publication

Author Response

The authors wish to thank reviewer 2 for general appreciation of the study and for the useful comments which allow to improve the general quality of the manuscript.

Answer to comment 2)

An additional explanation of the novelty of the paper has been added to the section Framework and aim of the work in the introduction. Here below the part from the text is reported:

“Differently from [31] where an international overview is given, the Italian case studies are here presented more in detail, while specific conclusions are drawn for solar energy implementation in Italy. Additionally, a comparison between the different built environments is also provided, highlighting similarities and differences among them.”

The comparison has been added in the form of a table (Table 3. Similarities and differences among the different built environments) in the new section 4.6. Similarities and differences among the different built environments. The aim to provide a comparison among and between the different environments described in the study. Specifically, similarities and differences are highlighted for existing environments, new environments, and between new and existing environments.

Furthermore, it is worth mentioning that a completely new case study “CasaNova” has been added on top of the ones presented in the IEA SHC Task 51 “Solar Energy in Urban Planning”.

Answer to comment 3)

The website link to the IEA SHC Task 51 “Solar Energy in Urban Planning” website (https://task51.iea-shc.org/) has been added to the abstract as suggested.