Towards a Sustainability Assessment Model for Urban Public Space Renewable Energy Infrastructure

As cities develop new interventions for climate change mitigation, incorporating renewable energy in urban public spaces becomes a common norm to address sustainability objectives. However, current built projects and assessment practices mainly uses a “techno-fixes” approach focusing on strategies that are related to the environmental benefits and neglecting other potential strategies instigating social and economic benefits of renewable energy. The purpose of this study is to present a potential sustainability assessment model introducing new strategies for public space renewable energy use where social and economic benefits of renewables become evident. Supplemented with theories and principles from ecology, the model’s economic strategies refer whether the project considers meaningful part of the produced electricity for generating a local economy; environmental strategy comprises embodied energy, energy storage and self-maintenance; social strategy includes whether the project considers generating active and passive interaction using on-site electricity. Ballast Point Park in Sydney was used as a test bed to examine the model and sustainability of park’s renewable energy use. The findings showed that environmental strategies were evident in the park, social strategies remained average and economic strategies with renewable energy were lacking. Interactions with on-site produced electricity was further claimed to be an imperative feature of any public space. Recommendations were made specific to operational and planning impacts of the integrated model.