Sustainability and resilience assessment of urban energy systems

The aim of this thesis is to provide an exploratory assessment and analysis that quantifies and qualifies the level of sustainability and resilience of urban energy systems in four selected cities: Amsterdam, Hamburg, Kawasaki and Tokyo. The assessment was conducted using a combined rather than a single approach in order to better understand local energy systems of these four cities. Combined approach is determined using integrally sustainability and resilience concepts rather than one concept only. Concepts of sustainability and resilience were developed using a Driver-Pressure-State-Impact- Response (DPSIR) framework. DPSIR framework was applied in order to select appropriate indicators, i.e. criteria against which performances of local urban energy systems were determined. The study included a feedback on relevant theoretical knowledge which explores as a foundation, concepts of sustainability and resilience, urban energy systems, combined sustainability and resilience assessment, theoretical knowledge on development of sustainability and resilience indicators and a DPSIR model. The theoretical knowledge provided the setting for further development of conceptual framework for this thesis, defining main features as central to exploration study. As the research was developed, new findings were added and incorporated into the study i.e. theoretical knowledge. The study proceeded with descriptive statistics to provide understanding of detailed economic, environmental, institutional performance of urban energy system in four cities, as well as resilience performance of the national energy system. Observing the values of different indicators, it was found that sustainability performance is differently distributed among cities and strongly linked with local context, i.e. measures and technologies used in the energy sector. It was also observed that funding programmes, energy strategy and low carbon development in an urban area play a crucial role for increased sustainability performance. Expansion in the field of energy vision for the city and country is an important element for enhanced resilience performance. In the power sector of three countries, analyzed improvement of existing power generation units and switching to cleaner types of coals brings added value to sustainability and resilience. Furthermore, it was found that a profitable margin for renewable technologies is lower compared to traditional technologies. The study concluded that integration of DPSIR framework and integrated approach to sustainability and resilience assessment may add real benefit to local energy systems` planning and functioning.