Multi-criteria decision support system for urban energy group planning and decision-making activities

The choice among Urban Energy Planning (UEP) scenarios is broadly based on multi aspects. Hence, the Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) basing on stakeholders-oriented approach plays a fundamental role in implementing the effective strategies. In this regard, the use of proper supportive tools and methods to address the complex interactions of UEP purposes are needed. This study aims at presenting the final result activities of a national Smart City & Communities project, named “EEB-Zero Energy Buildings in Smart Urban Districts”, which is the development of a new Multi-Criteria Spatial Decision Support System (MC-SDSS) for UEP. This tool facilitates the group decisional processes for stakeholders by creating “what-if” questions and visualizing “ifthen” scenarios on-the-fly. Specifically, the study focuses on the definition of different energy retrofitting scenarios for the built environment, based on stakeholders’ preferences. Accordingly, different decision scenarios have been developed representing a set of retrofitting measures basing on the different hierarchy of preferences of the stakeholders as “stakeholders-oriented” scenario. The tool has been applied and tested to a demonstrator case-study, related to a medium-sized city of the metropolitan area of Turin.