Synthetic parameters to promote energy sharing system in urban areas: Biomass Energy Ratio for organic fraction evaluation in relation to urban district typology

The challenge to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions (GHG) and support alternative solutions to traditional fossil fuels have a central role in energy efficiency practices and the development of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) is part of this framework. Despite the European and national targets issued by Community, have allowed the achievement of good results, for the post-2020 policies is fundamental an in-depth analysis to maintain and, possibly, increments the current positive renewable energy trend. In this context a crucial and open direction is the upgrading of RESs in optimized model to be applied in the greatest energy consumers: Cities. In fact, Cities host the most part of world population, billions of people who need energy for their homes and for the related services. The need to work on Cities has to address innovative changes in RESs’ application methodology, able to exploit in-house sources – energetic, technical, social, etc – in order to propose feasible solutions in a circular economy way involving all local stakeholders. In this scenario, the considerations related to district level can represent a relevant opportunity. Indeed, thanks to its contained dimension – halfway between city and building –, district allows the development of possible strategies for RESs application, able to generate an affordable economy of scale and contemporary stimulate a new awareness in citizenships through local sources’ potential exploitation. In RESs options, cities’ biomass represents an absolutely interesting chance. Bio-waste, green waste, sewage, are daily produced by districts, and offer a huge energy potential today mainly uselessly dispersed. Understanding the quantity of biomass potential is a first phase towards its promotion. Each district, in relation to its urban morphology and population density, can affect the quantity of biomass produced and, consequently, address its use. For this cause, it is fundamental to identify evaluation tools able to associate energy opportunity of biomass utilization. These tools could be parameter for cities stakeholders – citizens, neighborhood community, local Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Institutions – to evaluate such RES feasibility. The present work, through the relation between urban morphology and building typology identifies a synthetic energy parameter to calculate the biomass convenience. Though the reading of spatial specific district parameters, measurable in each possible case study, the Biomass Energy Ratio aims at being an instrument useful to understand the biomass energy potential for existing, or for designing, urban areas.