Introduction to the italian case studies

The first year of SoURCE research has led to the development of a methodology and a standard procedure required for sustainable management of urban areas in an energetic key, in order to promote regeneration. Within the general urban framework, it has been necessary to find an elementary unit/module of territory to which the optimization process of the relationship between the energy potentialities from renewable sources and anthropic consumptions could refer. Interventions for rationalization and restraint of energy demand, as well as the evaluation of potential capture and use of natural renewable energies, require the identification of a specific and appropriately circumscribed peculiar context. In fact, the real opportunity to draw on renewable sources of energy is conditioned by a set of constraints about orography, morphology, landscape, urban planning, etc ... Furthermore, different portions of territory may have very different climatic and geographical features.