Sustainable Urban Energy Planning

While cities command an increasingly dominant role in the global economy as centres of both production and consumption, this rapid urban growth throughout the developing world is outstripping the capacity of most cities and urban centres to provide adequate services for their citizens.

While there is no ‘typical’ city in terms of their energy needs and energy use, they do have a lot in common. Cities run on energy and require land – their burning of fossil fuels and their contribution to land clearing combine to contribute massively to the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They are also extremely vulnerable to energy scarcity, to energy price rises and health impacts of very poor air quality. In developing countries many urban citizens experience extreme energy poverty and their access to transport and so to urban goods is constrained.