Spatial Energy Modelling of a Residential Building Stock Based on GIS: A Case Study of the Walloon Region in Belgium

Nowadays, we are all concerned by the world global warming. Cities are looking forward for creating tools that will help to reduce their energy consumption. This research is funded by ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) and it addresses the energy challenge of developing a strategic decision support tool dedicated to multi-scale and dynamic energy mapping, as well as the analysis of energy data for integrated energy management, on the Walloon region territory in Belgium. The study uses a GIS combined with energy models to map the energy consumption of the whole residential building stock of Wallonia. This involves heating consumption, heat demand, electricity consumption and cooling consumption of all residential buildings in Wallonia, including 1,520,650 dwellings. Each building is characterized by its energy consumption. Heating, cooling and electrical consumption are spatialized on the whole territory of Wallonia at various representation scales, namely the neighborhood, municipality and urban region scales. This article presents used methods, produced multi-scale maps and statistical analysis of the results in terms of energy consumption in the Walloon residential built environment. These results will help the strategic decision makers to see where to focus in order to reduce the energy consumption in cities and take strategic decisions. Our methodology can also be applied to other cities and regional territories.