Sustainability assessment of the Locally Integrated Energy Sectors for a Slovenian municipality

Present day energy policies are increasingly being focused towards local energy systems. Local communities may be more effective when implementing energy objectives due to the lower losses of energy during transmissions, closer contact with the end-users, and also greater support from local decision makers. Different tools, approaches and concepts are available for achieving greater energy efficiency within local energy systems. One of them is the Locally Integrated Energy Sectors (LIES) concept that provides energy integration with end-users from various sectors such as the industry, service, household, agriculture, transport and public sectors within a particular geographical area. LIES could well contribute towards lower energy consumption, novel opportunities for sustainable energy supply, decreased negative impact on the environment and consequently towards the amplification of sustainable development (SD) regarding local communities. The presented research focused on developing suitable metrics for evaluating the sustainability of LIES. These metrics are comprised of general sustainability indicators grouped into four major categories: energy, environmental, economic, and social. The applicability of the proposed metrics for LIES evaluation is illustrated by a case study of the district heating system within the Ormož municipality in Slovenia.