EUKN - Italy - Energy & Territory: the experience of Cities, IT.

Energy & Territory: the experience of Cities, IT.

Introduction

The Italian Ministry of Infrastructure led a research titled “Energy & Territory: the experience of Cities” with the aim of providing an in-depth overview of the most relevant experiences of European and Italian Cities as regards the implementation of measures to promote renewable energy technologies supply.

Description

The “Energy & Territory: the experience of Cities” study aims at capitalising and disseminating knowledge on European energy-related issues, trends and innovations. Its objectives are:

to analyse the urban energetic strategies implemented throughout Europe
to examine the citizens’ involvement in the decision making process concerning energetic choices, especially at local level
to promote the dissemination of good practices on sustainable urban energy planning
to compare the Italian and the European experiences through the description of the main findings produced by Programmes aimed at promoting renewable energy supply.

Background information

In the “White Book” on renewable energies, the European Union set up a European-wide action recommending to cover the 12 percent of the total EU energy consumption by renewable energy sources. Moreover, the Leipzig Charter promotes a sustainable development of the European Cities. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to stengthen an overall active involvement of local communities and implement sustainable energetic policies. These policies should take into particular account the tight relation between economic development, social cohesion, enhancement of life standards and promotion of renewable energy supply.

Methodology

The report focuses on actions geared to strengthen the use of renewable energy supply and highlights the relevance of initiatives to promote and disseminate a new environmental culture based on sustainable energy supply, which have been implemented. The research brings out the innovative measures promoted by the following European experiences:

RESET (Renewable Energy Strategies for European Towns), a network of European towns aimed at verifing the possibility to replace fossil energy with other renewable energy sources. The project implied the involvement of citizens in the project management to take into consideration the local demand and potential
URBAN AUDIT aimed at monitoring European Cities and collecting information as regards the Co2 emissions and other environmental issues
RESTART (Renewable Energy Strategies and Technology Applications for Regenerating Towns) aimed at strengthening the sustainability of the built environment and providing Public Authorities, Institutions and practitioners with some "Exemplary Urban Projects" concerning innovative energies supply.

Conclusions

The report provides relevant background information for the future development of renewable energy supply in Italian Cities. The research gives an overview of the most successful Italian projects implemented in the field of sustainable energy, such as:

“the Scientific and Technologic Park for the Environment” (“Environment Park”) implemented in Turin and which represents an opportunity for regenerating a city district. The project was created under the concept of environmental sustainability, with extensive use of environmentally friendly materials, renewable energy sources, ventilated facades, low buildings blending into the greenery of the park
“the Gate-Porta Palazzo”, implemented in Turin, is a project promoted in the framework of the Urban Pilot Projects (Progetti Pilota Urbani, PPU) and represents a best practice as regards the promotion of innovative financing policies, namely public-private partnerships and participatory planning.

Contact info

Ministry of Infrastructure
Ms. Cinzia Zincone

Publication date

01/07/2007

Project finished

Researcher

Ministry of Infrastructure

Links

Ministry of Infrastructure (in italian)

Document type

research

Themes

Urban Policy > Urban environment > Environmental sustainability

Keywords

Renewable energy supplies

Institutional characteristics National Government