SMART ENERGY CITIES: a decision support methodology to overcome barriers to implementation of smart and sustainable energy projects in urban areas

Implementation of smart and sustainable energy projects in urban areas encounters different barriers. These barriers range from common financial shortage to specific constraints, which depend on local socio-economic, environmental and political characteristics of each city. In spite of various experiences of European cities in smart and sustainable energy projects, the transfer of lessons learnt on how to manage barriers in new projects is inefficient. The main aim of this paper is to support decision makers to identify barriers to implementation of smart and sustainable energy projects, based on knowledge gained through previous experiences. To achieve this aim, a decision support methodology is proposed and applied to the case study of the city of Bolzano, within Sinfonia project. Sinfonia is a European Commission Seventh Framework Programme project for integration of smart and sustainable energy solutions at urban district level. The decision support methodology operates in the following steps: first, identifying and selecting the most similar European smart and sustainable energy cases to the target-case (Bolzano within Sinfonia); second, investigating barriers to implementation of selected cases. The gained knowledge can be further analyzed with respect to the target-case. The decision support methodology is applicable and replicable for urban planners and decision-makers in different territorial levels to facilitate and accelerate the implementation of smart and sustainable energy projects.