Qualitative Assessment Methodology for Positive Energy District Planning Guidelines

Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) have recently become an important concept for urban development. However, the number of publications on the transfer of the PED concept to practice is still very limited. This conference paper presents an analysis of the current state of the art in guidelines regarding the planning and implementation of PEDs based on the analysis of 25 PED guidelines reported by anonymous contributors, collaborating in the development of the IEA EBC Annex 83 activities. From this analysis, it becomes clear that nearly all documents including were produced in the period 2018–2020. Most guidelines address local and/or regional governments, focusing predominantly on urban development and planning processes or technological solutions, mostly at the scale level of the district or city, and less often at building block or individual building level. Although some of the documents are journal papers with a very narrow view on specific technological design or implementation aspects, seven guidelines can provide city administrations, urban stakeholders, solution providers and research with overall information on and suggestions for the process of planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of PEDs, and a description of the potential impact of PEDs. They result of the analysis will serve as baseline for the future work within IEA Annex 83, in particular for drafting IEA Annex 83 guidelines for the planning and implementation of PEDs.