The Netherlands has a strong tradition of blueprint planning in spatial design. Since the financial crisis of 2008, a shift has been made to more organic approaches to development. Currently, a paradigm is evolving which is able to deal with complex challenges that the built environment faces today: a shortage of housing and a transition to sustainable energy. Industrial area Schieoevers Noord, situated in Delft, is developed with the rationale of this new paradigm: directing into the direction of a mixed-use and densified city district, yet with an open end. Since the Municipality of Delft does not own land in the 75 hectares large district, interdependencies exist between the municipality, project developers, and the current users: industrial companies. The problem statement of this research project: how to plan for sustainable energy supply (heat and cold supply) in a complex context characterised by interdependencies. The concept of adaptivity has been explored as a potential strategy to implement in a process of sustainable energy planning, resulting in the design of a five-step approach: the Schieoevers Noord approach for adaptive energy planning. Six characteristics of adaptive processes have been found based on a literature review. Three of these turned out to be absent in current approaches for sustainable energy planning: a way to explicitly incorporate uncertainties (unpredictability and interdependency) in planning, mechanisms for iteration, and the creation of conditions for development (rather than planning actual developments). The latter has been intensively studied by investigating heat and cold balances in different building scenarios (densities and function mixes), concluding in the need to shape conditions for development in Schieoevers Noord, by the proposal of energy-based design guidelines, ensuring energy-neutral developments, no matter the building volume or mix of building functions.