Urban environments can be key to sustainable energy in terms of driving innovation and action. Urban areas are responsible for a significant part of energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. The share of greenhouse gas emissions is likely to increase as global urban populations increase. As over half of the human population will live in cities in the near future, the management of energy supply and demand in urban environments will become essential. Developments such as the transformation of the electricity grid from a centralised to a decentralised system as well as the electrification of the transportation and heating systems in buildings will transform the urban energy landscape. Efficient heating systems, sustainable energy technologies, and electric vehicles will be critical to decarbonise cities. An overview of emerging technologies and concepts in the built environment is provided in this literature review on the basis of four main areas, namely, energy demand, supply, storage, and integration aspects. The Netherlands is used as a case study for demonstrating evidence-based results and feasibility of innovative urban energy solutions, as well as supportive policies.

Residential buildings account for a significant share of energy consumption and carbon emissions, and the electrification of heating coupled with rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation creates new challenges for the local distribution grid: import peaks from heat pumps and export peaks from PV surpluses. Battery energy storage systems (BESSs) can address these challenges by reducing peak demand, increasing self-consumption, and supporting grid services. We report on a multi-objective optimization of BESS sizing and dispatch in a 58-apartment positive-energy building in Utrecht, using one full year of measured smart-meter data. A linear-programming model with a Wöhler-based degradation cost trades off peak shaving and self-consumption across a battery-capacity sweep, under two scenarios: a hypothetical building-wide consolidation under a single shared ±110.4 kW grid connection (Scenario 1), and the building's current operational configuration with the BESSs serving the facilities side only (Scenario 2). The dominant economic driver is consolidation rather than operational savings: once the BESS dispatch eliminates the 122 hours of annual PV export violation, the avoided cost of the 58 individual apartment grid connections becomes accessible. The installed 70 kWh BESS already crosses this feasibility threshold, achieving a payback of approximately 0.55 years; the economic optimum lies near 280 kWh. In Scenario 2, where peak-shaving has no value, the BESS contributes only modest self-consumption gains. The results point to the value of grounding BESS sizing studies in real, multi-apartment operational data and of recognizing institutional drivers (grid-connection structure) alongside technological ones in the economic case for residential storage.