Meta-analysis of district-level solutions towards energy, carbon and economic targets

Abstract

As interest in district-level approaches for design and renovation of the built environment grows, new technical solutions have been developing and there is an increasing diversity of technologies and measures available. A characterization of the available solutions and of their adoption in practice is performed, using a meta-analysis of a selection of case studies depicting district interventions in Europe, based on a comprehensive literature review. The analysis included categorization of measures and technologies, quantification of their occurrence in the case-studies, how their impact was evaluated, and which performance indicators were used. Results showed that the majority of carbon emissions and economic savings were related to improved energy performance. The technical measures more often declared concerned energy supply, especially photovoltaic panels, followed by options for HVAC and DHW. A wide variety of indicators for performance assessment was found. The most prevalent ones are from the category of energy performance, followed by economic cost and carbon emissions. The work concludes with an analysis for the impact of the measures on the several categories of performance. Measures seldom adopted that showed good potential to contribute to impactful solutions were also identified.