SYNCITY: AN INTEGRATED TOOL KIT FOR URBAN ENERGY SYSTEMS MODELLING

This paper demonstrates a new tool for the integrated modelling of urban energy systems. Energy is vital to the delivery of urban services and its role can be considered at many stages in the urban design process. This begins with the planning and layout of a new city, through to the socio-economic structure of the city and its activities, and the choice of energy carriers and technologies used to meet these demands. Unfortunately existing modelling technologies typically focus on only one of these components and are customised to a single problem context. We have therefore developed a “synthetic city” tool kit (SynCity) to facilitate the integrated modelling of urban energy systems across all of these design steps and in a variety of problem environments. After outlining the components of this methodology, we demonstrate how it can be applied to the case of a UK eco-town. The discussion then considers the wider applicability of the SynCity methodology and highlights potential use cases.