La pianificazione energetica urbana nei processi di trasformazione della citta'

This thesis talks about relationships between energy and urban planning, and so it’s a collection of theories and practices (mostly of them in progress) about local energy managment and instruments of urban planning. The treatment about “energy and settlements”, i.e. connections between energy systems and morphological and functional aspects of settlement, is essential to the sustainability goal, above all after the gradual process of administrative devolution, that has permitted possible conditions for energy and urban planning and in particular attentions to “conscientious” territorial development. According to that and because of lack in research and specific testing on it, this thesis wants to give a contribution to the study about opportunities of energy in urban planning, in term of physical and functional city’s transformation. The research, in particular, deals with different implications and meanings of energy in urban planning and so reviews various declinations of “energy and settlement” frame, focusing on Italian planning instruments because they represent a startup to change territorial transformation process and (partially) to define “Piano Energetico Urbano”, my own expression that synthesizes the particular process of energy integration (or just an approach) in the ordinary planning process. In particular, in the first part, the thesis talks about general connections between energy aspects and the territorial planning, emphasizing the gap and the unexpressed potentialities of two matters that don’t collide, to focus on the city, a common object of intervention. The second part of the thesis rebuilds the disciplinary background: it analyses the specific Anglophone literature, i.e. “urban sprawl vs. compact city” debate and the settlement and behavioural alternative model ones (New Urbanism, Smart Growth, Car Free Cities, Low Carbon Cities, Post Carbon Cities and Transitions Towns), and finally environmental and energy community politics, programmes and initiatives, that are the first promoter of stakeholders energy interest. The third part draws characteristics of the energy plan, first of all the main regulatory and methodological reference, Ln. 10/91, that has introduced the urban and energy plan (Piano Energetico Comunale, PEC) and the regional one (Piano Energetico Regionale, PER). After the analysis of some selected experiences (most of all from Emilia Romagna, because it has a specific regional energy and planning regulation), the thesis underlines how, through sustainability settlement and development strategies against energy and urban complexity, sectorial energy planning is under restyling. As conclusion, there is a general and explanatory frame about best practices, thanks to, it’s possible to define some up- and-coming themes of Piano Energetico Urbano, such as: territorial and conformable dimension (dimensione conforme), territorial partitions, directions of sectorial cancellations, and public and private relationships in energy and planning transformation process.