Energy Transition Partnership at this year's EU Sustainable Energy Week

This year's EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW18) took place from 4 to 8 June 2018. The Partnership on Energy Transition contributed to it with a workshop on "Energy Transition in Action", organised together with the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) initiative.

During the first panel discussion, the coordinating cities (Gdańsk, London and Roeselare) presented the vision for the Partnership and state-of-play around the work it is doing, highlighting the important role that a smart integrated energy system will play in the future prosperity and liveability of cities.

Addressing the challenges of the transition is important and the Partnership drew attention to the need to reducte primary energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions and look towards creating a more circular energy economy. Some specific action areas were:

Energy master planning
Reducing energy demand at a building and city level
Re-using waste heat and making it more readily available for use in buildings and heat networks
Making the electricity network more flexible and creating support for services and technologies that do that
Developing an extensive pipeline of investable projects and financing mechanisms that will support their delivery

The inclusion of different actors (e.g. industry, public authorities and academia) emerged as a key demand. On that note, the audience and the wider community were invited to contribute to the Public Feedback on the Partnership’s draft actions, which is planned to be available in late 2018.

The panel went on to discuss three concrete projects supported by the UIA initiative:

The FED Project in Gothenburg introduces scalable and replicable solutions for energy efficiency. The aim is to develop and demonstrate a local market place for electricity, district heating and district cooling. More information: bit.ly/2rZhhPB
The CoRDEES Project in Paris focuses on innovative Smart Grids solutions and effective energy governance on the Eco District of Clichy-Batignolles. The target is to reduce the overall energy consumption by over 30% in 2030. More information: bit.ly/2IXDJxZ
The Vilawatt Project in Viladecans, Spain changes the role of communities by involving citizens in the energy transition process of their city via a “public-private community partnership” (PPCP). More information: bit.ly/2n5qYGt

The first panel discussion was concluded by a discussion of the regulatory framework for emission reductions to meet the Paris Agreement.

The second panel discussion posed questions regarding the rationale behind energy transition initiatives, the role of cities and municipalities in the process, along with some of the major practical challenges that it represents.

You can watch the entire session "Energy Transition in Action" on the EUSEW website.

A video summarising EUSEW18 is accessible on YouTube.

To learn more on the Energy Transition Partnership, please consult the Orientation Paper.

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