Technological options towards a carbon neutral town in central Italy

Abstract

The paradigm of highly integrated cross sector energy systems grants several opportunities for welcoming high shares of renewable energy sources in meeting the energy demands of current urban districts. A key asset towards such challenge lies in the progressive deployment of more distributed energy systems, achieving configurations tailored to the needs of the local communities lying in their physical proximities. This study analyses the case study of a small town situated in central Italy, which energy supply already features a set of distributed and cross-sector energy resources such as a district heating network fed by a 1.2 MWe natural gas engine and more than 30 MWp of non-controllable renewables. The city energy systems are modelled in the analysis tool EnergyPLAN in order to analyse the technical feasibility of introducing different technological options aimed at reducing the polluting emissions generated in meeting different energy related needs of the district.