The European Green Deal: New Challenges for the Economic Feasibility of Energy Retrofit at District Scale

Abstract

The European Green Deal proposes an epochal change in the European society by transforming environmental and climatic problems into opportunities and making sustainable and fair the European Union economic system. Radical changes will also concern urban redevelopment and energy efficiency measures in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. To achieve these objectives, rules and standards, as well as financial resources and assessment tools, are needed to support both urban planning and public decision process. This paper aims to analyze the existing European programs that are applied in some European smart cities, as they constitute a valuable source of information for the development of financial schemes and evaluation tools ad hoc for the Green Deal implementation. Moreover, the analysis of the pilot projects of the ZenN program has made possible to identify some critical issues regarding the economic feasibility of energy retrofit at a district scale, though further studies will be required to respond to the new assessment challenges launched by the Green Deal.