A modular methodology for the development of urban energy planning support software

Two-thirds of the overall primary energy in the world is consumed in cities, resulting in 71 percent of all energy related greenhouse gas emissions. There are many ongoing initiatives to develop strategies to lower the high amount of emissions at the level of cities. However, energy planners face problems that are related to the complexity of the urban energy systems, encapsulating the components of the city together with their properties and interactions that are relevant to the planning process. The complexity of the problem increases given the unavailability of data and their multiple levels of detail (LOD). Therefore, there is a need for adequate tools to support the development of integrated energy strategies, defining specific quantifiable CO₂ reduction measures to be implemented at the city level. In this research, we perform an analysis of urban energy planning processes. Then, we extract the general requirements of decision support in this discipline. Then, we perform a general data availability review in cities. This process results in formalizing a modular methodology for the development of urban energy planning support software. This methodology is specific to urban energy planning, it ensures the modularity of the development process, it leads to flexible software that operates under different available LODs of data, and it addresses the problem of data availability at the development stage.