Insights on flexibility, efficiency and citizen participation in the energy transition from the 2024 SDEWES Conferences

Since the first Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES) in Dubrovnik in 2002, the SDEWES conference series has served as a platform for global scientists and others interested in sustainable development to share research and discuss current advancements, future directions, and priorities. A key challenge in the coming decades is the decarbonization of the energy sector and tackling it requires a holistic approach based on an integrated analysis of electricity, heating, cooling, transport, water, buildings, waste, industry, and agriculture systems. This topic is at the core of SDEWES Conferences, which have maintained a high publishing standard with over 2408 SDEWES papers published in special issues of leading scientific journals, including Smart Energy. In 2024, three SDEWES conferences took place – the 4th Latin American Conference on SDEWES, 14-17 January 2024 (Viña del Mar, Chile), the 2nd Asia Pacific Conference on SDEWES, 2-5 April 2024 (Gold Coast, Australia) and the 19th SDEWES Conference 2024, 8-12 September 2024 (Rome, Italy), bringing together leading researchers from 5 continents. The special issue includes selected works from a pool of 700+ papers spanning across the thematical landscape of sustainable development of energy, water and environment systems, including topics such as energy sector coupling, high penetration of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and district heating and cooling.