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Place
Event Brussels
Date
6 July 2023, 9:00 – 13:30

Strengthening Europe with solar powered cities

Aurore Delsoir

Investment in renewable energy ensures a “win-win” solution – advancing Europe’s energy security while at the same time working towards decarbonisation. With the recent agreement on the revision of Europe’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED III), an important step is taken to further boost renewables, enabling a more than doubling of current annual renewables deployment.

With a view to the power system, solar PV and wind power will become the main pillars of the EU’s power system. By 2030, almost 600 GW of PV will need to be installed in the EU, compared to 210 GW at the end of 2022. Urban environments play an increasingly important role in this context. First, cities already have a high electricity demand, and it will continue to grow, inter alia because of the electrification of heating and cooling in buildings as well as that of transport sectors. Second, urban roofs represent a huge untapped potential for solar energy. As such, energy security issues are as crucial on the city level as they are nationally. Strengthening cities’ security of supply will certainly ease this issue on the national and overall EU levels while also contributing to the acceleration of the energy transition.

The EU’s Solar Energy Strategy aims for massive PV deployment via the European Solar Rooftops Initiative. As an example, the City of Budapest has a potential for five GW of rooftop PV. A huge number of European cities have similar conditions and potentials, which emphasises the importance of the European Solar Rooftops Initiative. Cities must exchange and engage on these matters, taking full advantage of the important framework offered by the EU Mission for 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities.

How can the current obstacles and problems in the realisation of PV projects in cities be removed or solved? By showcasing concrete examples of and options for boosting solar PV deployment in cities, this conference addressed these questions.

This event placed special emphasis on on-site exchanges and networking. Therefore, there was no video recording or live streaming.

Programme
The programme can be found in the download section below.

Presentations
You can find the slides in the download section below.

In cooperation with:

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This conference is part of the project "Fostering low-carbon investments in Budapest by exploring and promoting the possibilities of large-scale urban rooftop solar instalments" which is part of the European Climate Initiative (EUKI). EUKI is a project financing instrument by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Event details

Strengthening Europe with solar powered cities

Scotland House
Rond-Point Schuman 6
1040 Brussels
Belgium

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