ConclusionsGlobal warming and urban heat island increase the ambienttemperature and intensify the energy consumption for cooling pur-poses of buildings and other structures. At the same time, in heatingdominated climates, a rise of the ambient temperature may offerbeneficial and positive energy results in terms of restricting coolingneeds.The major impact of ambient temperature rise is related to thepossible increase of the peak electricity demand that obliges powerutilities to construct additional power plants and probably increasethe cost of electricity supply. In addition the potential increase of the electricity energy consumption place under stress both theconsumers and the electricity networks.Based on the results of fifteen studies examining the impact ofambient temperature on the total electricity consumption, it is evi-dent that the energy penalty of ambient overheating is quite highand depends mainly on the characteristics of the building stock, theclimate zone, the urban form and the type of the provided energyservices. The potential increase of the electricity demand per degreeof temperature rise varies between 0.5% and 8.5%. The thresholdambient temperature over which the electricity consumption startsto increase is for most of the cases around 18◦C, however it may bemuch lower and around to 12◦C, or considerably higher, 23◦C.The potential increase of the peak electricity demand triggeredby the ambient warming is also high. Existing studies show that thepeak electricity demand increases from 0.45% to 4.6% per degree ofambient temperature rise. This corresponds to a penalty of about21 (±10.4) W per degree of temperature rise per person.In order to reduce the specific impact of urban heat island andglobal overheating on electricity consumption, buildings and urbanstructures have to be adapted to the specific climatic conditions.The development of low energy or close to zero energy buildingsmay reduce significantly the energy needs and thus the result-ing stress to the utilities and the consumers [39]. In parallel, thedevelopment and use of advanced urban adaptation and mitiga-tion techniques and technologies with the potential to decreasethe ambient temperatures in cities, may also reduce considerablyurban temperatures [40,41]. The mix of the urban adaptation andmitigation techniques and technologies needs to be differentiatedper urban area as it depends on the inflection point of the urbanarea concerned.