Smart Cities and the Need for Green Energy

Dear Colleagues,

There is a need to develop smart cities and green energy if we are to achieve net-zero emissions goals. The use of clean energy sources, specifically solar energy, micro-wind energy, hydrogen fuel, heat pump, geothermal energy, storage, and other technological innovations, are tools to support the development of city ecosystems oriented towards intelligent approaches.

The focus of smart city development is based on citizens’ behaviors: it becomes crucial to improve aspects related to the energy consumption of residential buildings, offices and industries. Additionally, there is a need to promote services related to city livability and resilience actions aimed at reducing environmental impacts for citizens (such as waste management, energy and transport management systems). Additionally, it is necessary to analyze the sustainable transportation of people based on personal, public, and sharing systems, as well as freight transportation in urban areas with last-mile logistics. Sustainable transportation is based on zero-emission and autonomous vehicles. ICT technologies and digitalization of the infrastructure are the pillars of the implementation of these strategies. Opportunities related to improvement and innovation are geared toward the study of the urban system and the impacts generated by the lives of citizens where energy consumption must be efficient or produced in an environmentally friendly fashion. An important aspect is the analysis of energy storage of urban systems, where consumption is very often not aligned with green energy production.

This Special Issue aims to collect recent innovative research, theoretical and practical insights for the stakeholders on smart cities and need for green energy. We welcome scientific contributions, ranging from basic research to applied research with case studies, pilot applications, and demos.

Dr. Bartolomeo Silvestri
Prof. Dr. Francesco Facchini
Guest Editors

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• smart cities
• green energy
• renewable energy
• sustainability
• digitalization
• urban planning
• green transport
• circular economy
• waste management
• impact of urban freight transport
• last-mile logistics