Assessment of retrofitting measures and solar systems' potential in urban areas using Geographical Information Systems: Application to a Mediterranean city

Energy efficient management of urban environment is undoubtedly a challenging task. Although the topography of cities and their urban built environment are considered as the main layers for environmental analysis, further geographical data has to be taken into account as well. In particular, economic and social data should also be considered on spatial level, as they highly affect the need for energy conservation measures. Furthermore, land and building uses, urban mobility and transactions are also crucial factors that influence energy use and management. Within this framework, this paper examines the establishment of a methodology approach in order to estimate energy conservation and solar systems potential in urban environments, based on the implementation of geoinformatics decision-making tools into a fine-scale analysis over an extended geographical area. All above multi-criteria variables can be efficiently analyzed by applying Geographical Information System (GIS) tools, which are particularly applied for the establishment of the proposed methodology. The scope of the paper is to deliver an integrated assessment tool, in order to aid researches as well as public bodies for the implementation of energy policies concerning the urban built environment. A case study of the urban area of Thessaloniki in Northern Greece is presented focusing on the evaluation of current energy performance and possible retrofit measures for the existing urban building stock, especially for typical residential multi-family (MF) buildings. Conclusively, the general outcome obtained by current research, indicate that denser urban areas perform limited potential both for retrofitting interventions on buildings' envelope and solar systems applications, apart from the quality and the age of building constructions.