Contextual Aspects of Smart City Energy Systems Analysis: Methodology and Tools

The thesis defines the concept of smart city energy systems. The thesis emphasises the need to investigate the smart city energy system and two contextual aspects. The system integration context and the geographical context.
The system integration context emphasises that increased interrelation between the different energy sectors increases the efficiency of the system. However, it also impacts the implementation of single technologies in the smart city energy system. The thesis discusses methods and tools to assess the system integration context.
Smart cities, and other concepts for urban development, often strives towards some sort of sustainability target. However, to consider a city and the smart city energy system sustainable, they cannot limit other energy systems from becoming sustainable. It is therefore necessary to investigate the geographical context. This thesis develops tools and methodologies that enables the user to investigate the geographical context of smart city energy systems.
The thesis applies the concept of smart city energy systems, the system integration context and the geographical context on several cases, to test the tools and methods and to analyse the consequences of the different contextual aspects.