16Given the increasing penetration of renewable energy technologies as distributed generation 17 embedded in the consumption centres, there is growing interest in energy storage systems 18 located very close to consumers. These systems allow to increase the amount of renewable 19 energy generation consumed locally, they provide opportunities for demand-side 20 management and help to decarbonise the electricity, heating and transport sectors. 21In this paper, the authors present an interdisciplinary review of community energy storage 22 (CES) with a focus on its potential role and challenges as a key element within the wider 23 energy system. The discussion includes: the whole spectrum of applications and 24 technologies with a strong emphasis on end user applications; techno-economic, 25 environmental and social assessments of CES; and an outlook on CES from the customer, 26 utility company and policy-maker perspectives. Currently, in general only traditional thermal 27 storage with water tanks is economically viable. However, CES is expected to offer new 28 opportunities for the energy transition since the community scale introduces several 29 advantages for electrochemical technologies such as batteries. Technical and economic 30 benefits over energy storage in single dwellings are driven by enhanced performance due to 31 less spiky community demand profile and economies of scale respectively. In addition, CES 32 brings new opportunities for citizen participation within communities and helps to increase 33 awareness of energy consumption and environmental impacts. 34

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Urban areas are increasingly associated with negative environmental impacts due to concentrated resource consumption; however urban areas also offer economies of scale in terms of service provision. There is no accepted mechanism to aid decision-makers in policy selection to determine where to promote population growth or how to select settlement specific policies to improve sustainability of urban areas. There is strong political desire for methods assessing policy implementation impact on overall sustainability targets, but this has proved challenging, as views on the meaning of sustainability vary, and methods developed satisfying scientists' needs for rigor are deemed too complex and inadequately transparent by decision-makers. Sustainability measurement is vital to check whether a new policy, decision or technical innovation is helpful in enhancing sustainability. By 2055 estimates indicate that 75 percent of the world population will live in urban areas, highlighting the importance of promoting low cost policy decisions providing greatest environmental benefit, with short implementation timescale. This paper describes an evidence-based method developed and piloted to address these drivers and provide a decision support system for planners and policy-makers developed for Irish settlements with population range 500-20,000, which may have application elsewhere. OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 1820

Policy making to promote more sustainable development is a complex task due in part to the large number of both stakeholders and potential policies. Policy feasibility testing provides a guide to the viability and practicality of policy implementation and forms an important part of an evidence based policy making process. An extensive literature review has identified no standardized approach to feasibility testing. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by describing a novel method using Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) for feasibility testing of policies aimed at increasing the sustainability of towns and villages in Ireland. Feasibility results are provided for 40 frequently cited policy interventions tested for 18 settlements in Ireland. Policies were selected in the arenas of transport, food, housing and urban form, energy, waste and water. Policies are feasibility tested through analysis of operational evidence from both quantitative and qualitative data sources. Following testing, policies are ranked in terms of feasibility. This research examines the effectiveness of local and national level policies and the importance of both local community involvement and central government regulation in policy success. The inter-settlement variation in feasibility testing scores prioritises policy selection and aims to reduce cherry-picking of policies to support the viewpoints of the decision maker. Although developed for an Irish urban context the methods described here may have applicability elsewhere.