Advances in Urban Sustainability and Positive Energy Districts: Energy Transition and Carbon Footprint Reduction
A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2025 | Viewed by 16
Special Issue Editors
Interests: building performance evaluation; energy master planning; energy solutions; energy retrofit
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: energy performances of buildings, districts and neighborhoods; sustainability of buildings and energy systems; life cycle assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The basic principle of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) is to create areas within city boundaries that are capable of generating more energy than consumed and agile/flexible enough to respond to the variation in the energy market, as PEDs should not only aim to achieve an annual surplus of net energy but also be adaptable to changes. PEDs should also support minimizing the impact on the connected centralized energy networks by offering options for increasing onsite load-matching and self-consumption, technologies for short- and long-term storage, and providing energy flexibility with smart control. PEDs can include all types of buildings present in the city environment, and they are not isolated from the energy grid.
In the research community, PEDs are a rising concept to shape cities into carbon-neutral communities in the near future. This Special Issue focuses on the recent advances in Urban Sustainability and Positive Energy Districts.
Developing PEDs requires improving energy efficiency, cascading local energy flows by making use of any surpluses, and using low-carbon energy production to cover the remaining energy consumption. Smart control and energy flexibility are needed to match demand with production locally and practically, and also minimize the burdens and maximize the usefulness of PEDs on the grid at large. All PEDs should be evaluated with respect to Energy Transition and Carbon Footprint Reduction.
The Special Issue aims to report on enhanced cooperation on PED development on an international level. The scope of this Special Issue is defined by the following topics:
Topic 1. Recent advances in mapping the relevant city, industry, research, and governmental (local, regional, and national) stakeholders and their needs and roles to inform the work. The main focus is on how to ensure the involvement of the main stakeholders in the development of relevant definitions and recommendations.
Topic 2. Recent advances in creating a shared in-depth framework for the PED concept based on evidence in research and practice.
Topic 3. Recent advances in the development of the needed information and guidance for implementing the necessary technical solutions (on building, district, and infrastructure levels) that can be replicated and gradually scaled up to the city level, giving emphasis to the interaction of flexible assets at the district level and also economic and social issues such as acceptability.
Topic 4. Recent advances in novel technical and service opportunities related to monitoring solutions, big data, data management, smart control, and digitalization technologies as enablers of PEDs.
Topic 5. Recent advances in the development of the needed information and guidance for the planning and implementation of PEDs, including both technical planning and urban planning. This includes economic, social, and environmental impact assessment for various alternative development paths.
Dr. Matthias Haase
Dr. Francesco Guarino
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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Keywords
- positive
- energy
- districts
- assessment
- replication potential
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