Are solar cities feasible? A review of current research

ABSTRACT Urban ‘polycentric’ experimentation is enabling a new understanding of the sustainability potential of cities across the world. Coupled with the rising prominence of ‘grid parity’ conditions for solar energy, it is becoming clear that cities have abundant opportunities to reconfigure urban energy economies on platforms fuelled mainly and, in a few more years, entirely on energy conservation and renewable (especially solar) energy. Early evidence of the practical application of ‘solar cities’ models suggests the financial feasibility of city-wide development of electricity infrastructures based on conservation and renewables. The results of technical and economic potential investigations capture the promise of the model. But a question remains: how can we realize the investment needed to implement solar cities. We examine three pathways: ‘project-based solar development’; ‘strategic solar development’; and ‘infrastructure-scale solar city development’, focusing in each case on solar electricity development since much of the conservation potential in cities is capable of self-financing (Byrne, J., & Taminiau, J. (2016). A review of sustainable energy utility and energy service utility concepts and applications: Realizing ecological and social sustainability with a community utility. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment, 5(2), 136–154. doi10.1002/wene.171). After review of some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, we recommend infrastructure-scale development as the most promising means to attracting city-wide, cost-effective, sustainable energy investment.

[1]  R. Norgaard,et al.  Practicing Interdisciplinarity , 2005 .

[2]  J. Byrne,et al.  A review of the solar city concept and methods to assess rooftop solar electric potential, with an illustrative application to the city of Seoul , 2015 .

[3]  U. S. N. Renewable.  Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic Technical Potential in the United States: A Detailed Assessment , 2017 .

[4]  L. Mumford.  The city in history : its origins, its transformations, and its prospects , 1961 .

[5]  Ivana Kockar,et al.  The economics of distributed energy generation: a literature review , 2015 .

[6]  John Byrne,et al.  Can Cities Sustain Life in the Greenhouse? , 2006 .

[7]  P. Komor,et al.  Distributed PV and Securitization: Made for Each Other? , 2014 .

[8]  H. Bulkeley,et al.  A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities , 2013, Global environmental change : human and policy dimensions.

[9]  Raul Miranda,et al.  Technical-economic potential of PV systems on Brazilian rooftops , 2015 .

[10]  Miguel Brito,et al.  Modelling solar potential in the urban environment: State-of-the-art review , 2015 .

[11]  P. Lund,et al.  Combining solar resource mapping and energy system integration methods for realistic valuation of urban solar energy potential , 2016 .

[12]  Ulrich Leopold,et al.  GIS-based modelling of shallow geothermal energy potential for CO2 emission mitigation in urban areas , 2016 .

[13]  Paul Denholm,et al.  Impact of Different Economic Performance Metrics on the Perceived Value of Solar Photovoltaics , 2011 .

[14]  Robert Margolis,et al.  Estimating Rooftop Suitability for PV: A Review of Methods, Patents, and Validation Techniques , 2013 .

[15]  H. Bulkeley,et al.  Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change , 2013 .

[16]  D. Gordon,et al.  The Politics of Accountability in Networked Urban Climate Governance , 2016, Global Environmental Politics.

[17]  罗海军,et al.  A New Focusing Excitation Method Based on Magnetic Induction Tomography , 2017 .

[18]  F. Faria,et al.  Economic feasibility analysis of small scale PV systems in different countries , 2016 .

[19]  Jian Liu,et al.  GIS-based approach for potential analysis of solar PV generation at the regional scale: A case study of Fujian Province , 2013 .

[20]  Lin Lu,et al.  Estimation of Hong Kong's solar energy potential using GIS and remote sensing technologies , 2016 .

[21]  J. Byrne,et al.  Multivariate analysis of solar city economics: impact of energy prices, policy, finance, and cost on urban photovoltaic power plant implementation , 2017 .

[22]  R. Rüther,et al.  Economic performance and policies for grid-connected residential solar photovoltaic systems in Brazil , 2012 .

[23]  P. Denholm,et al.  Supply curves for rooftop solar pv-generated electricity for the United States , 2008 .

[24]  A. K. M. Sadrul Islam,et al.  Potential and viability of grid-connected solar PV system in Bangladesh , 2011 .

[25]  N. Toly,et al.  Energy as a Social Project: Recovering a Discourse , 2017 .

[26]  W. Fichtner,et al.  A high-resolution determination of the technical potential for residential-roof-mounted photovoltaic systems in Germany , 2014 .

[27]  Joannette Jacqueline Bos,et al.  A design framework for creating social learning situations , 2013 .

[28]  T. Hoff,et al.  Solar power generation in the US: Too expensive, or a bargain? , 2011 .

[29]  Robert B. Gibson,et al.  Learning through evaluation: A tentative evaluative scheme for sustainability transition experiments , 2017 .

[30]  M. Santamouris.  Cooling the cities – A review of reflective and green roof mitigation technologies to fight heat island and improve comfort in urban environments , 2014 .

[31]  Vasilis Fthenakis,et al.  Energy policy and financing options to achieve solar energy grid penetration targets: Accounting for external costs , 2014 .

[32]  K. McCormick,et al.  Urban living labs for sustainability and low carbon cities in Europe: towards a research agenda , 2016 .

[33]  Peter Lund,et al.  Smart energy system design for large clean power schemes in urban areas , 2015 .

[34]  Maria Wall,et al.  The Solar Map as a Knowledge Base for Solar Energy Use , 2014 .

[35]  V. Goodship,et al.  The feed-in tariff in the UK: A case study focus on domestic photovoltaic systems , 2013 .

[36]  Jannik Giesekam,et al.  Solar City Indicator: A methodology to predict city level PV installed capacity by combining physical capacity and socio-economic factors , 2013 .

[37]  Amaryllis Audenaert,et al.  An economic evaluation of photovoltaic grid connected systems (PVGCS) in Flanders for companies: A generic model , 2010 .

[38]  Sérgio Freire,et al.  Applications of solar mapping in the urban environment , 2014 .

[39]  Frank Nevens,et al.  Urban Transition Labs: co-creating transformative action for sustainable cities , 2013 .

[40]  Mark Bolinger.  Utility-Scale Solar 2012: An Empirical Analysis of Project Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends in the United States , 2014 .

[41]  M. Bolinger,et al.  Utility-Scale Solar 2015: An Empirical Analysis of Project Cost, Performance, and Pricing Trends in the United States , 2014 .

[42]  Alexander C. E. Aylett.  Progress and Challenges in the Urban Governance of Climate Change: Results of a Global Survey , 2014 .

[43]  R. Dufo-López,et al.  Economical and environmental analysis of grid connected photovoltaic systems in Spain , 2006 .

[44]  The changing energy mix in Germany: The drivers are the Energiewende and international trends , 2014 .

[45]  Calvin Lee Kwan,et al.  Influence of local environmental, social, economic and political variables on the spatial distribution of residential solar PV arrays across the United States , 2012 .

[46]  G. Barbose,et al.  An analysis of residential PV system price differences between the United States and Germany , 2013, 2013 IEEE 39th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC).

[47]  Ryan Wiser,et al.  Exploring the impact of permitting and local regulatory processes on residential solar prices in the United States , 2015 .

[48]  R. Banerjee,et al.  Estimation of rooftop solar photovoltaic potential of a city , 2015 .

[49]  C. Breyer,et al.  Global overview on grid‐parity , 2013 .

[50]  John Byrne,et al.  A review of sustainable energy utility and energy service utility concepts and applications: realizing ecological and social sustainability with a community utility , 2016 .

[51]  Eric Masanet,et al.  Energy Technology Perspectives 2016: Towards Sustainable Urban Energy Systems , 2016 .

[52]  R. Rana,et al.  The European Policy for the Sustainability of Urban Areas and the “Covenant of Mayors” Initiative: A Case Study , 2014 .

[53]  O. Edenhofer,et al.  Climate change 2014 : mitigation of climate change , 2014 .

[54]  R. Dawson,et al.  Climate change response in Europe: what’s the reality? Analysis of adaptation and mitigation plans from 200 urban areas in 11 countries , 2013, Climatic Change.

[55]  Bertoldi Paolo,et al.  Covenant of Mayors in Figures - 5-Year Assessment , 2013 .

[56]  P. Halder,et al.  Potential and economic feasibility of solar home systems implementation in Bangladesh , 2016 .

[57]  J. Jägermeyr,et al.  Calculation of bright roof-tops for solar PV applications in Dhaka Megacity, Bangladesh , 2010 .

[58]  Jarett Zuboy,et al.  Is $50/MWh solar for real? Falling project prices and rising capacity factors drive utility-scale PV toward economic competitiveness , 2015 .

[59]  Monforti-Ferrario Fabio,et al.  Covenant of Mayors: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Achievements and Projections , 2016 .

[60]  Fabian Levihn,et al.  Big meter data analysis of the energy efficiency potential in Stockholm's building stock , 2014 .

[61]  A. Inaba,et al.  Human Settlements, Infrastructure and Spatial Planning , 2014 .

[62]  Alison S. Tomlin,et al.  Methodologies for city-scale assessment of renewable energy generation potential to inform strategic energy infrastructure investment , 2016 .

[63]  E. Ostrom.  Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change , 2010 .

[64]  Firdaus Muhammad-Sukki,et al.  Revised feed-in tariff for solar photovoltaic in the United Kingdom: A cloudy future ahead? , 2013 .

[65]  Jinqing Peng,et al.  Investigation on the development potential of rooftop PV system in Hong Kong and its environmental benefits , 2013 .

[66]  Ryan Wiser,et al.  The impact of city-level permitting processes on residential photovoltaic installation prices and development times: An empirical analysis of solar systems in California cities , 2013 .

[67]  Arnim Wiek,et al.  Learning while transforming: solution-oriented learning for urban sustainability in Phoenix, Arizona , 2015 .