GLI ULTIMI ORIZZONTI DELLA RIGENERAZIONE URBANA: DIRITTO DELL¿ENERGIA E COMUNITÀ ENERGETICHE RINNOVABILI.UNA SFIDA POSSIBILE?

The aim of this thesis is to assess the distinctive features of the phenomenon of ‘urban regeneration’ as an expression of the principle of sustainable development, from a multidisciplinary perspective and with particular attention to the legal issues that characterise it. Focusing on the main coordinates of land consumption and urban regeneration, attention has been placed, inter alia, on the benefits deriving from the potential, as yet unexpressed, of urban regeneration thanks to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in urban planning, from the perspective of environmental and energy law, and - in particular - on the theorisation of models such as the so-called Smart Cities and Renewable Energy Communities, capable of combining environmental and energy benefits with the increasingly emerging needs imposed by human development. The dissertation is composed of four chapters. In the first part of the thesis, urban law is studied with specific regard to the issue of land consumption in the prism of urban regeneration. The study is necessary for two reasons. Firstly, in order to understand the models theorised in the following part of this work, a preliminary reconnaissance of the concept of urban regeneration and the related fight against land consumption, both in the interaction and European perspective, is necessary. Secondly, from a critical point of view, this first analysis allows to highlight the problematic situation resulting from the persistent lack, in the Italian legal system, of an organic discipline on soil protection. In this sense, in addition to an institutional framework of the subject matter of this study, the first chapter allows the reader to focus precisely on the problems dictated by a regulation that is in itself inadequate and unsuitable to face the related challenges of the environmental and energy transition. The second chapter, starting from this acquisition, moves on to analyse the potential, as yet unexpressed, of urban regeneration. In particular, it examines the Smart Cities model, understood, as far as it is of interest here, as a driver for urban and energy regeneration, inquiring into the possibility of declining urban regeneration policies from an energy perspective and – in the final instance – theorising innovative figures underlying the full realisation of so-called smart cities. Thus, the third chapter focuses on the study of a new paradigm of urban regeneration, namely the Renewable Energy Communities (hereinafter, the “RECs”), analysing its origin, development and possible applications of the model. In this chapter, in which a systematic reconstruction of RECs is initially proposed, a number of specific profiles are analysed, such as the key role of the citizen/prosumer – considered as the protagonist of the energy transition process – and the urban impact that RECs can have within the framework of urban regeneration policies. Finally, the fourth chapter, with the intention of incorporating all the elements disseminated in the previous chapters, focuses specifically on the role of digitalisation at the service of the Renewable Energy Community within the scope of urban regeneration policies. Therefore, it concludes by stating, inter alia, that the realisation of an innovative Smart Cities development model – based not only on the use of technology, but also on the implementation of RECs – will enable citizens to be oriented towards concrete forms of regeneration and innovative governance, oriented towards energy, environmental, social and economic sustainability, in which consumers – as previously mentioned – play an increasingly active role; a factor – the latter – that is fundamental to the success of the energy transition.