Background
Cities and Energy
Urban energy systems play a crucial role in the economic, social and environmental performance of large towns and cities.
The demand for energy in the urban area is immense.
This is because, urban areas are the significant locations of critical loads such as hospitals, airports, public transport networks and data centres.
This creates the challenge of supplying this demand without interruption when renewables are part of the generation mix.
Urban energy system in the UK and China
Although the driving forces and the objectives of development of urban energy systems are different in the UK and China, the sustainable, cost-effective and reliable urban power supply is one of the key research topics in both countries.
There are many dense newly built urban areas in China, with limited space for renewables but the resilience and clean energy with less air pollution are key issues.
The UK has legacy urban energy infrastructure and decarbonisation has priority.
All these challenges will place unprecedented requirements on the load demand and distributed generation of urban energy systems.
Novel Technology for Urban Energy Systems
The interconnectedness of urban energy networks is an opportunity for novel methods such as, the Internet of Things (IoT), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and control systems to name but a few.
