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European policy has acknowledged the significance of local and regional communities for the
deployment of new low carbon technologies and their potential for sustainable energy production and use.
Several initiatives and programmes (e.g. Covenant of Mayors) have been set up to engage European cities in the
effort towards a low carbon future. At the same time, there is a critical need to improve comprehensive city
planning driven by an integrated approach and focused on cost benefit assessment towards sustainable energy
use. Hence, innovative tools and models to assess and perform in-depth analysis of the alternative measures
towards efficient energy use, will help pave the way to fully capture the potential of each city in the most
efficient (economically, socially and technically) way.
The InSMART concept brings together four European cities: Évora (Portugal), Cesena (Italy), Nottingham (UK)
and Trikala (Greece), and scientific organizations of these countries, to establish a methodology for enhancing
sustainable planning for city needs through an integrative and multidisciplinary planning approach, aiming to
developing detailed sustainable energy action plans. Such an approach will identify the optimum mix of short,
medium and long term projects and investments, addressing the efficiency of energy flows across various city
sectors with regards to economic, environmental and social criteria and will highlight priority actions.
Tools and models, like Geographic Information System, buildings models (CitySim and EnergyPlus) and
transport-based energy and carbon model, as well as a technological partial equilibrium energy model (TIMES),
are used to analyse, all the relevant sectors (buildings, industries, transports, waste and water management).
Furthermore, the cities buildings stocks are being characterized through an extensive 110-question survey
(around 410 door-to-door interviews) and will be modelled through a typology approach. Four hundred 20-
question surveys are also being carried out to evaluate transport and mobility patterns, supported on travel diaries and fulfilling different quotas for several variables (geographic location, days of the week, age and working
status) in order to assure representativeness of the data collected.
The main differences between rural and urban areas results from the building surveys and high-resolution
electricity consumption from smart meters for the Portuguese city of Évora are highlighted.

Improvements of energy efficiency and reduction of Electricity Consumption (EC) could be pushed by increased knowledge on consumption profiles. This paper contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the EC profiles in a Southwest European city through the combination of high-resolution data from smart meters (daily electricity consumption) with door-to-door 110-question surveys for a sample of 265 households in the city of Évora, in Portugal. This analysis allowed to define ten power consumption clusters using Ward's method hierarchical clustering, corresponding to four distinct types of annual consumption profiles: U shape (sharp and soft), W shape and Flat. U shape pattern is the most common one, covering 77% of the sampled households.
The results show that three major groups of determinants characterize the electricity consumption segmentation: physical characteristics of a dwelling, especially year of construction and floor area; HVAC equipment and fireplaces ownership and use; and occupants’ profiles (mainly number and monthly income).
The combination of the daily EC data with qualitative door-to-door survey-based data proved to be a powerful data nutshell to distinguish groups of power consumers, allowing to derive insights to support DSOs, ESCOs, and retailers to design measures and instruments targeted to effective energy reduction (e.g. peak shaving, energy efficiency).

Daily electricity consumption profiles from smart meters are explored as proxies of active behavior regarding space heating and cooling. The influence of the environment air temperature (multiple maximum and minimum daily thresholds) on electricity consumption was explored for a final sample of 19 households located in southwestern Europe (characterized by hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters), taking the full year of 2014. Statistical analysis of the deviations from hourly average electricity consumptions for each temperature thresholds was performed for each household. Firstly, these deviations could act as proxies highlighting possible lack of thermal comfort on space cooling, and partially on space heating, supported by door-to-door survey data, on socio-economic details of occupants, buildings bearing structure and equipment's ownership and use. Secondly, meaningful differences of consumers' behavior on electricity consumption pattern were identified as a response for space heating and cooling to the environment air temperatures thresholds. Additionally, statistical clusters of active and non-active behavior groups of households were assessed, showing the electricity use for space heating. This paper illustrates the importance of the widespread use of smart-meters data on the increasingly electrified buildings sector, to understand whether and how thermal comfort could be achieved through active climatization behavior of its occupants. This is particularly important in regions where automatic HVAC systems are almost absent.

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The increase of renewables in power sector, together with the increase of their electricity share in final energy consumption, is changing our perception about energy security with diverse and contradictory statements. The Portuguese security of electricity supply is analyzed in this study by comparing selected indicators for 2. years before and after the high increase of onshore wind since 2005. Our goal is to find how the security of electricity supply was impacted by the penetration of renewables, taking a supply chain approach. Our analysis highlights that the penetration of renewables has decreased the energy dependence of the power sector by more than 20% between 2004 and 2011, while risks related to the concentration of natural gas suppliers and to the still-high share of fossil fuels suffering from price volatility are discussed. We observed a significant improvement in power interconnections with Spain, as well as an increase of the de-rated generation capacity margin, allowing proper management of renewable power intermittency if necessary, thereby improving power security. Although the share of intermittent renewables almost quadrupled in total installed capacity between those years, the indicators reveal an improvement in the quality of transport and distribution when delivering electricity to end-users. Although electricity prices increased, mainly due to taxes, the lack of energy efficiency is an aspect deserving improvement to alleviate the pressure on electricity security, mainly at high peak demands.