Heat demand modeling at the scale of urban neighborhoods

In order to provide guidance in the planning process of energy efficient urban redevelopment projects and describe energy management strategies for existing neighborhoods the overall objective of the presented approach is to develop a methodology describing the energy balance of urban neighborhoods building on an integrated assessment of energy efficiency measures and efficient supply systems. A necessary prerequisite is a high temporal resolution allowing for the development of advanced energy management strategies as well as for the investigation of expected potentials for coupling different low temperature processes in mixed use areas. As part of the energy balance this paper presents a grey-box approach for the description of the thermal energy demand in a coherent urban area. It is argued that urban neighborhoods represent an intermediate scale in their own right requiring a combination of forward and data driven models. First results from the combination of the two components are discussed indicating a general consistency of the two strategies.