Integrating renewable energy technologies into cities through urban planning: In the case of geothermal and wind energy

Abstract

Focusing mainly on renewable energy, the overall aim of this dissertation is to introduce energy and energy related environmental considerations into the context of Turkish planning and urban policies. If planning in Turkey should contribute to combat with the reality of climate change and to improve local environmental quality, renewable energy considerations are required to be incorporated into planning process. With regard to characteristics of renewable energy utilization, this study seeks to answer the questions of how planning can promote the widespread use of renewable energy sources, how renewable energy integrated planning policies can be formulated and implemented, how renewable energy integrated planning process can be put into practice, and how renewable energy technologies can successfully be integrated into cities. With the objective of defining renewable energy integrated planning process the research conducted to explore these how questions is based on the idea of learning from other's experiences. In view of that the study focuses on understanding the European perspective and learning from the experiences of the member states. While exploring how questions and converting the defined process into Turkish context the research is carried out at both national and local scale. Integrated policy approach is taken into consideration with regard to the capacity of institutional framework comprising integration between the national energy-renewable energy, environmental and planning policies. At the local scale, the research focuses on integration of renewable energy technologies into cities and the renewable energy integrated planning approach in the case of geothermal and wind energy developments and source potentials of the city of Izmir.