The Solar Urban Master Plan a Novel Instrument in Urban Planning

摘要

The built environment in German cities has the largest potential for immediate and economic energy efficiency improvement compared to other relevant sectors such as industry and transport. Urban planning aspects are especially relevant, due to the longevity of urban structures. In a multidisciplinary research project, Ecofys in cooperation with the Aachen University of Technology and the Cologne University of Applied Science developed a novel approach to incorporate solar energy aspects in the urban planning process. Due to the common development history of German cities, a limited number of typical city quarters could be defined. Multidisciplinary workshops yielded prototypes of optimized solar urban prototypes developed on the basis of realized pilot projects. An analysis yielded furthermore: (ⅰ) a novel definition of the area potential for solar energy: the solar urban potential (ⅱ) a novel approach to present the possibilities for high quality integration of solar energy in the urban planning process. On the basis of spatial planning data from the city of Gelsenkirchen a solar Master Plan was developed for the various city quarters and the city as a whole and the solar urban potential calculated. The analysis yielded a solar urban potential for the city of Gelsenkirchen of 3,564 thousand m~2 on the roofs and 873 thousand m~2 in the facades. For Germany our analysis yielded a per capita solar urban potential of 21.5 m~2 on roofs and 7 m~2 on facades.