Development of renewable energy strategies for small urban areas

he role of municipalities to foster renewable energy generation has been recently recognized and pointed out. First, their involvement comes from the fact that strategic planning at a local level is necessary due to the site-specific nature of renewable sources. Second, in the last years, the role of citizens has turned out to be a critical issue as demonstrated, for instance, by the NIMBY syndrome, suggesting local governments' participation in the process, since they can benefit by a closer connection to inhabitants. Third, the point of view of local governments, who are the institutional actors more directly involved, can help to better estimate both technical and non-technical barriers for the growth of renewable energy. Starting from the analysis of a small urban area, Corinaldo, located in Central Italy, whose electricity production from renewable sources is able to cover about 70% of the entire municipal electricity use, the present paper aims at identifying renewable energy strategies for small urban areas that can be suitable for big cities and metropolitan regions as well. First, the main energy strategies carried out by the municipality under study have been identified; second, the main barriers and measures to a much higher renewable energy penetration have been discussed. This analysis has been conducted with the aid of a specific tool, EnergyPlan, developed by the Aalborg University to evaluate energy alternatives based on renewable energy systems. Finally, general findings suitable for fostering renewable energy penetration have been pointed out. In particular, results show that the higher percentage of renewable energy on the total energy demand, which generally characterizes small urban areas, mainly derives - other than from the obvious reason related to the area dimension - from the closer connection between the local governance and citizens, able to improve communication and succeed in delivering important messages.