
The CityGML Energy Application Domain Extension (or, in short: Energy ADE) offers an open and standardised data model to facilitate multi-scale Urban Energy Modelling applications.
The current version 3.0, still in active development, is based on and builds primarily upon version 1.0 of the Energy ADE, released in 2018, which has been already used in several national and international projects, mainly focusing on the simulation and computation of the building energy performance based on the integration of semantic 3D city models and other sources of information.
The technological innovations (e.g. the release of CityGML 3.0 in 2021) and the experiences and feedback collected since its release have contributed to forge several new ideas to improve and update the Energy ADE. Since 2024, work has been going on to harmonise and implement such ideas, with TU Delft and HFT Stuttgart being responsible for the first major development "sprint" in terms of conceptual data model (TU Delft) and implementation of the Java libraries (HFT Stuttgart). In the meantime, and in addition to the other DigiTwins4PEDs consortium members, several other partners have joined on a volunteer basis as enthusiastic contributors, early testers or technology enthusiasts.
This version of the Energy ADE 3.0 is currently based on and extends CityGML 2.0, but its development already keeps in consideration its future porting to CityGML 3.0
The Energy ADE 3.0 has been recently presented at the 133rd OGC Member Meeting in October 2025. You can download the slides here.
The Energy ADE 3.0 has a modular structure:
Please refer to the documentation for more details, as well as a detailed description of the changes between the Energy ADE 1.0 and the current version of the Energy ADE.
Besides the conceptual model, available as UML diagrams (and the accompanying specifications), additional resources are available, such as:
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The software resources available on this repository adopt the Apache License 2.0.
The documentation and the UML diagrams are released under the Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
If you use the Energy ADE in scientific work, please cite one of our papers:
[!NOTE] Till September 2025, the internal development version of the updated Energy ADE was called v. 2.0.
Since October 2025, we use v. 3.0.
Agugiaro, G., Padsala, R., 2025
A proposal to update and enhance the CityGML Energy Application Domain Extension.
ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., X-4/W6-2025, pp. 1-8
Link to open-access paper (PDF)
Gao, W., León-Sánchez, C., Agugiaro, G., 2025
Data-driven energy simulations to evaluate positive energy district potential in Rotterdam.
ISPRS Ann. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., X-4/W7-2025, pp. 25-32
Link to open-access PDF.
Padsala, R., Falay-Schweiger, B., Hainoun, A., Coors, V., 2025
A Data-Driven Urban Digital Twin Approach for Evaluating Positive Energy District Potential Using OGC Standards in Stuttgart.
ISPRS Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci., XLVIII-4/W16-2025, pp. 67–74
Link to open-access PDF.
Gebetsroither-Geringer, E., Padsala, R., Hainoun, A., Agugiaro, G., Biernat, S., Reber, A., Smetschka, B., Gao, W., Horak, D., Falay, B., Coors, V., 2025
A participatory planning framework using urban digital twins supporting the co-creation of flexible, Positive Energy Districts.
(Schrenk, M., Popovich, V.V., Zeile, P., Elisei, P., Beyer, C., Ryser, J., Trattnig, U., eds)
REAL CORP 2025 Proceedings/Tagungsband, pp. 65-76. Graz, Austria, 14-16 April 2025. ISBN 978-3-9504945-4-9.
Link to open-access PDF.
Bachert, C., León-Sánchez, C., Kutzner, T., Agugiaro, G., 2024
Mapping the CityGML Energy ADE to CityGML 3.0 using a model-driven approach.
ISPRS Int. Journal of Geo-Information, MDPI, 13(4)
Link to open-access PDF.
Agugiaro, G., Benner, J., Cipriano, P., Nouvel, R., 2018
The Energy Application Domain Extension for CityGML: Enhancing interoperability for urban energy simulations.
Open Geospatial Data, Software and Standards, 2018 3:2. SpringerOpen, United Kingdom
Link to open-access PDF.
Development of the new Energy ADE has started in spring 2024 within the European DigiTwins4PEDs project. The project is funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe Partnership scheme. The DUT Call 2022 also contributes to the Urban Transition Mission of Mission Innovation as part of the MICall 2022 initiative.
In addition to the DigiTwins4PEDs consortium members, several other partners have joined on a volunteer basis as enthusiastic contributors, early testers or technology enthusiasts.