Elsevier

Energy

Volume 171, 15 March 2019, Pages 523-534
Energy

Energy consumption assessment due to the mobility of inhabitants and multiannual prospective on the horizon 2030–2050 in one Belgium city

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.01.032Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Energy consumption due to transportation is the highest during the working days.

  • Energy will decrease upto 40%, in 2050 by using of the car to the benefit of the train/metro.

  • Energy consumption is expected to increase between 419  kWh and 1509 kWh from 2030 to 2050.

Abstract

In the context of sustainable development, the environmental aspects of urban areas are taken into account by correlating them with their energy consumption. The purpose of this research is to collect and analyze the energy consumption data due to the transport in Belgium, and more precisely in the Liege province. But, also to make forecasts of these same consumptions to the horizon 2030–2050. The methodology chosen allow to model and improve the energy consumption for city-wide transports and to forecast the evolution of city energy consumption to simulate the effects of certain urban development strategies. We focus here on the city of Liege which we will compare the different data of energy consumption with those of other cities. The analysis of the impacts of mobility on energy consumption and greenhouse gas was based on seven scenarios established through several surveys and researches. The results showed that the daily mobility of inhabitants has a significant effect on CO2 emission and energy consumption. It is necessary to act in the long term by encouraging public transport such as vehicles with low energy consumption. The energy consumption in transportation sector can decrease up-to 19%, by reducing between 10% and 20%, of displacement by private car, and an increase up to 60%, both combined displacement by bike (for the distances small than 12 km), and walking (distances small than 1 km).

Introduction

A good energy policy can therefore facilitate the rapid development of a country [1]. Environmental sustainability is the challenge for future long-term success. Today, the transition between renewable and fossil energy is extremely slow, despite several state summits summoned for this purpose [2,3]. Thus, each country develops its own energy policy by ensuring the availability of energy resources in sufficient quantities corresponding to the needs of its users in terms of quality, efficiency and safety.

Politicians and leaders of poor and emerging countries are slow to develop good energy policies in their countries. As a result, it is difficult to install energy-intensive industries in these countries. For specialists in development, energy consumption is an indicator of the level of development in the dynamism of economy of a country [[4], [5], [6]].

According to IPCC [7], one of the main causes of global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases due to energy production. Globally, it has been shown that the transport sector accounts for about 30% of total energy use [10]. As shown in several studies, transport indicates one of the most active areas of the economy in terms of energy use and the spread of greenhouse gases in all countries [11,12]. It was agreed that vehicle use and economic growth were linked to energy growth from transport and GHG emissions [13]. Until now, the tests did not reflect the reality of consumption under actual conditions of use. The European Transport and Environment Association has agreed on a measurement protocol much closer to reality [15]. To be more efficient, this consumption should integrate the gray energy, ie the energy consumed throughout the life cycle of the vehicle, from manufacture to recycling, not to forget the transport infrastructure, whether road or rail [16]. Mobility in urban areas represents an important part of consumption energy sector. Indeed, developing countries are urbanizing faster than they are industrializing. This urbanization does not follow the path drawn by the northern countries [18]. The development of the automobile has led to a very sharp drop of the urban population density in Western countries [19].

Nowadays, the transport policies in regions with an important economic growth have several impacts than in industrialized regions. For example in its new policy, China agreed limit the rate of GHG emission encouraging gas car and fuel economy standard in several cities [8]. According to Julien Allaire [20], the rate of greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption have steadily increased. Between 1990 and 2007, global CO2 emissions from transport increased by 45%. This trend is particularly noticeable in developing countries and emerging economies. CO2 emissions from transport increased sharply between 1990 and 2009, so that for all non-industrialized countries these emissions accounted for almost 7% in 1990 and jumped to nearly 14% in 2009 [21]. The adoption of these methods should bring a decrease of energy consumption till more than of uncontrolled scenario [9]. The utilization of petroleum as a fuel for transport decrease with adaption of renewable energy. For example in Belgium, the energy sector was one of the drivers of economic development in the 19th century. Nevertheless, since this time Belgium is totally staying dependent on foreign countries for its oil, natural gas and coal needs, which account for 72.4% of its primary energy consumption in 2014 (42.3%, 23% and 23%,respectively) [14]. Final energy consumption was split in 2014 mainly between industry (26.6%), transport (21.7%), residential (18.4%) and tertiary (10.6%). Moreover, Belgium's energy-related CO2 emissions in 2015 amounted to 8.25 tonnes of CO2 per capita, 87% higher than the world average, and 89% this of France, but, inferior to 8% at this of Germany [14]. According to the International Energy Agency [17], in 2004, road transport accounted for 16% of CO2 production, but that data rose to more than 26% in 2010 in most developed countries. According to the World Bank, CO2 emissions from transport in Belgium, was estimated at 28.63% in 2014.

One of the major objectives of the European Union in its new policy since 1990 is to reduce the production of greenhouse gases by 20%, secondly to promote energy efficiency by 20%, and finally, to produce 20% energy, from renewable energy sources, by 2020. Thus was born the slogan “20-20-20 in 2020” [39].

This recent decade, some works studied transport energy consumption. In 2008, Poudenx [22] stated that greenhouse gas emissions and energy use are directly related to different transportation policies, while Ogilvie et al. [23] stated that a sustainable transportation policy should facilitate development of the most energy-efficient modes of transport, such as walking, cycling and public transport. The various policies and structures with the aim of modifying the supply of legislative or physical transport were divided into several classes in 2001 by Fujii et al. [24]. In 2004, Cairns et al. [25] showed that good mobility planning will facilitate instilling a policy of reducing the car journey to less than 3 km/person each day. This result was confirmed in 2007 by Parker et al. [26]. Private vehicles consume nearly five times the energy used by public vehicles, thus encouraging the population to adapt to public transport, reduce the demand for energy andCO2 emission [27]. Other researches were showed in Refs. [28,29]. Today, seen, to reduce carbon emissions and the depletion of fossil fuels, it is urgent to find a lasting solution. To do this, it is important to know the energy consumption related to the different current sectors. This project aims to establish a methodology and studied the current trends in energy consumption, as well as the prospects. In addition, its goal is to make multi-year seasonal forecasts of energy consumption by 2030–2050 for a given city typology.

This research was constituted of some mains sections. Indeed, Section 2 describes the methodology used. Section 3 presents the results analysis from the research, section 4 presents analysis and discussion, and Section 5 concludes the paper while giving some outlooks.

Section snippets

Studied city

Belgium is a federal state comprising three regions: the Walloon Region (Wallonia), the Flemish Region (Flanders) and the Brussels Region (Brussels-Capital). The population is concentrated in the region of Brussels-Capital which occupies a very small part of the territory is 161 km2, which is equivalent to 0.5% of the area of Belgium. It has, however, a very high population density of about 7057 inhabitants per km2 on 1 January 2012, a density nearly 20 times higher than the national average of

Results

The analysis of several official reports on demography in Belgium [[30], [31], [32]], as well as the projections for the next 50 years (until 2060) allowed us to draw the Fig. 2.

This figure showed the variation of population from 2010 to 2060. It is seen that, in Belgium, the population will increase up to 10.3%, between 2010 and 2030, then, will increase till 6.2%, (2030–2050), and 2.3% (2050–2060). While, in Liege, inhabitant percentage will increase to 16.9% between (2010–2060). Globally in

Discussion

Table 10 shows the synthesis of annual consumption by type of day, for the years 2010, 2030 and 2050.

All these scenarios have as foundation some hypothesis in majority taken in the literature [[33], [34], [35], [36]]. The results showed that the trends were generally the same for all scenarios, regardless of the type of day. For the sake of clarity, we have taken consumption for an average working day, by scenario for the years 2010, 2030 and 2050. Analyzing Fig. 9, it is seen that only the

Conclusion

This research sets up an energy performance index based on the movements of Liege residents according to the type of day for the years 2010, 2030 and 2050. These scenarios, even if some are very utopian, allow to have a precise idea of the sometimes tragic consequences that certain political actions (or non-actions) may have. It is necessary to act in the long term by investing a lot in cities and transport. This work also shows how important the mode of transport is in a city and how serious

Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the AXA Company for their support in this work, and the LEMA laboratory team of university of Liege, which have conducted this study.

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