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EU energy policy is more and more promoting a resilient, efficient and sustainable energy system. Several agreements have been signed in the last few months that set ambitious goals in terms of energy efficiency and emission reductions and to reduce the energy consumption in buildings. These actions are expected to fulfill the goals negotiated at the Paris Agreement in 2015. The successful development of this ambitious energy policy needs to be supported by scientific knowledge: a huge effort must be made in order to develop more efficient energy conversion technologies based both on renewables and fossil fuels. Similarly, researchers are also expected to work on the integration of conventional and novel systems, also taking into account the needs for the management of the novel energy systems in terms of energy storage and devices management. Therefore, a multi-disciplinary approach is required in order to achieve these goals. To ensure that the scientists belonging to the different disciplines are aware of the scientific progress in the other research areas, specific Conferences are periodically organized. One of the most popular conferences in this area is the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) Series Conference. The 12th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conference was recently held in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The present Special Issue of Energies, specifically dedicated to the 12th SDEWES Conference, is focused on five main fields: energy policy and energy efficiency in smart energy systems, polygeneration and district heating, advanced combustion techniques and fuels, biomass and building efficiency.

In the light of new European energy-climate package and its measures for increasing security of supply, decreasing the impact on environment and stimulating sustainable development with special emphasis on job creation and regional growth, Croatia as a future EU member state, needs to reconsider and develop new energy policy towards energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, in order to comply with all of the presented tasks. Planning future energy demand, considering various policy options like regulation, fiscal and financial measures, becomes one of the crucial issues of future national energy strategy. This paper analyses Croatian long term energy demand and its effect on the future national GHG emissions. For that purpose the national energy demand model was constructed (NeD model). The model is comprised out of six modules each representing one sector, following Croatian national energy balance; industry, transport, households, services, agriculture and construction. For three of the modules (industry, transport and households) previously developed long term energy demand models were used, while for the remaining three new models were constructed. As an additional feature, new GHG module was assembled and added to the NeD model covering all six sectors and calculating its emissions. The model is based on bottom up approach, where data was available, which combines and process large number of input data at the end use level. NeD model was used to present different future GHG mitigation paths, based on the implementation of various energy policies. Results obtained in this paper were also compared to Croatian National Energy Strategy for the years 2020 and 2030. It was shown that if already implemented policies are properly taken into account the actual final energy demand for 2030 will be 43% lower than forecast by the Croatian National Energy Strategy.

This 34th volume of the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management includes papers from the 2021 conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES) held October 10-15, 2021, in Dubrovnik, Croatia as well as the 7th International Conference on Smart Energy Systems held September 21-22 in Copenhagen, Denmark and two normal papers. A focus area of this issue is district heating and district cooling systems, with articles addressing resources for district heating and cooling systems, impacts of having individual district heating metres for consumers and approaches to analysing district heating systems. Another focus area is stakeholder involvement where two groups of researchers focus on stakeholders from an energy island perspective as well as from a positive energy district perspective. Both groups note the importance of factoring in stakeholders when devising transition plans. Plans for increasing the penetration of renewable energy sources for the Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian systems are analysed using the Backbone model, finding modest increases in system costs. Lastly, an article sets up an indicator system for assessing environmental performance of European Union member states ranking, e.g., Estonian, Latvia and Lithuanian as moderate (Estonia and Latvia) to weak (Lithuania) in terms of sustainable energy performance score, based on 2019 data.

This special issue of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is devoted to the research presented and discussed at the 10th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) held from the 27th September to the 2nd October 2, 2015 in Dubrovnik, Croatia. The contents are in in keeping with the aims and scope of the journal which is to bring together under one roof the current advances in the ever broadening field of renewable and sustainable energy. The articles published in this special issue review, discuss and examine energy resources and technologies (e.g. biomass, hydropower, solar, geothermal and wind), applications and services (e.g. buildings, industry, electricity and transport) and policy and the environment (e.g. economic, emissions, politics, energy planning, social aspects) within the framework of sustainable development. A total of 35 extended manuscripts were invited by the guest editors of this special to submit candidate articles for consideration for publication in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. After a vigorous review process by expert reviewers overseen by the guest editors a total of 22 articles were accepted for publication.

Several countries have recently realized that the present development paradigm is not sustainable from an environmental and energy point of view. The growing awareness of the population regarding environmental issues is pushing governments worldwide more and more to promote policies aiming at limiting harmful effects of human development. In particular, the rapid increase of the global temperature, especially in the polar regions, and the management of human wastes, mainly plastic in seas, are some of the main points to be addressed by these novel policies. Several actions must be implemented in order to limit such issues. Unfortunately, the recent COP 24 Conference was not successful, but hopefully an agreement will be established in 2020 at the COP 26 Conference. The effort performed by policymakers must be mandatorily supported by the scientific community. In this framework, this paper aims at showing that countries worldwide are trying to negotiate an agreement to increase energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, in this paper all the researchers reported can provide quantitative measures of the actions to be implemented in order to address a sustainable and efficient use of energy. Here, innovations in terms of novel efficient and environmentally friendly technologies mainly based on renewable energy sources have been also investigated. The study also highlights different sectors that have been involved for this aim, such as energy conversion systems, urban areas, mobility, sustainability, water management, social aspects, etc. In this framework, specific conferences are periodically organized in order to provide a forum for discussion regarding these topics. In this area the Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) conference is the most ordinary conference. The 13th Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems Conference was held in Palermo, Italy in 2018. The current Special Issue of Energies, precisely dedicated to the ...

In this paper, gate-fee changes of the waste-to-energy plants are investigated in the conditions set by European Union legislation and by the introduction of the new heat market. Waste management and sustainable energy supply are core issues of sustainable development of regions, especially urban areas. These two energy flows logically come together in the combined heat and power facility by waste incineration. However, the implementation of new legislation influences quantity and quality of municipal waste and operation of waste-to-energy systems. Once the legislation requirements are met, waste-to-energy plants need to be adapted to market operation. This influence is tracked by the gate-fee volatility. The operation of the waste-to-energy plant on electricity markets is simulated by using EnergyPLAN and heat market is simulated in Matlab, based on hourly marginal costs. The results have shown that the fuel switch reduced gate-fee and made the facility economically viable again. In the second case, the operation of the waste-to-energy plant on day-ahead electricity and heat market is analysed. It is shown that introducing heat market increased needed gate-fee on the yearly level over the expected levels. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed approach can make projects of otherwise questionable feasibility more attractive.

This article positions collective renewable energy prosumerism as a social movement that engages in energy system transformation. Collective renewable energy prosumer initiatives engage in 'prefigurative' work through their discursive framings (ways of thinking), their activities (ways of doing) and their understanding and enactment of social relations (ways of organising). The core of this article is a comparative analysis of the prefigurative work of 13 collective prosumers from 7 European countries (Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom). The article discusses their contributions to energy system transformation, including renewable energy production, different mechanisms for involving citizens, local value creation, and the degree of desired and actual collaboration and networking within broader prosumer ecosystems. We then discuss these contributions against societal discourses and expectations towards prosumerism, such as energy democracy, energy justice, and environmental sustainability and decarbonisation. This reveals three tensions: 1) a focus on decarbonisation but not on broader environmental problems, 2) the involvement of certain people and not of others, and 3) the building of prosumer eco-systems while ignoring incumbency. Future research avenues are formulated to conclude the article.

This article positions collective renewable energy prosumerism as a social movement that engages in energy system transformation. Collective renewable energy prosumer initiatives engage in 'prefigurative' work through their discursive framings (ways of thinking), their activities (ways of doing) and their understanding and enactment of social relations (ways of organising). The core of this article is a comparative analysis of the prefigurative work of 13 collective prosumers from 7 European countries (Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom). The article discusses their contributions to energy system transformation, including renewable energy production, different mechanisms for involving citizens, local value creation, and the degree of desired and actual collaboration and networking within broader prosumer ecosystems. We then discuss these contributions against societal discourses and expectations towards prosumerism, such as energy democracy, energy justice, and environmental sustainability and decarbonisation. This reveals three tensions: 1) a focus on decarbonisation but not on broader environmental problems, 2) the involvement of certain people and not of others, and 3) the building of prosumer eco-systems while ignoring incumbency. Future research avenues are formulated to conclude the article ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Heat Roadmap Europe 3 is from work package 2 of the STRATEGO project (http://stratego-project.eu/). It quantifies the impact of implementing various energy efficiency measures in the heating and cooling sectors of five EU Member States: Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Romania, and the United Kingdom. These countries vary considerably in terms of population, climate, resources, and energy supply, so the key results, conclusions, and recommendations presented in this report can inform national energy policy across all of Europe. The results from this study indicate that a total investment of approximately €1.1 trillion in energy efficiency measures across all five of these countries, between 2010 and 2050, will save enough fuel to reduce the costs of their energy systems. After considering both the initial investment and the resulting savings, the total annual cost of the heating, cooling, and electricity sectors is reduced by an average of ~15% in each country. These initial investments are primarily required in heat savings for the buildings, district heating in urban areas, and electric heat pumps in rural areas. In essence, energy efficiency measures in the heating sector will enable EU Member States to simultaneously reduce energy demand, imported fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions, and the cost of the heating, cooling, and electricity sectors.