Assessing the Energy Efficiency Practices in Cities Across the World

Urban areas consume nearly two-thirds of the global energy and are responsible for 70% of overall green-house gas emissions. This energy can be broadly clas-sified into three categories, i.e. embodied, operational and transport. Energy-efficient urban planning is an attempt to reduce the use of non-renewable energy sources, without sacrificing the quality of service. The strategies formulated for addressing energy efficiency will be targeting one or more of the energy types men-tioned above. The present study evaluates the energy efficiency strategies adopted by cities across the world which are cited as best practices by the International Energy Agency. One of the key observations from this study is that most strategies address operational energy, while few address transport energy. For the purpose of assessing the impacts of these strategies, technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution analysis was carried out which revealed an overall poor performance score for the case cities, with highest score for Stockholm and lowest for Austin. It is also evident from the study that there is a lack of detailed energy assessment of cities prior to formulation of energy efficiency strategies. This study demonstrates a framework that can be adopted for assessing urban energy efficiency strategies, and helps to identify the issues pertaining to current practices.