Grafting Cities – Energy Cities Annual Conference

Heating and cooling represents 50% of the energy demand in Europe and 80% of the energy consumption in households. The decarbonisation of heating and cooling is essential to the decarbonisation of our energy sector. The session will look into key success factors that can be learned from cities engaging in the decarbonization of their energy system.​

Participants of the session will benefit from peer-to-peer learning and access customed materials from the REDI4Heat Project.

• Projects involved: REDI4HEAT Covenant of Mayors

Agenda

14:30 – 14:35 Introduction to the session; Nicolas Raimondi, Energy Cities ​

14:35 – 14:45 EU legal framework and Toolbox ; Nicolas Raimondi, Energy Cities

14:45 – 15:40 Identifying key success factors for heat decarbonisation: panel presentation & discussion ​

• Mr. Stephan Auer-Stüger, Deputy chairman of the climate committee (City of Vienna) ​
• Dr. Tilmann Rave, Head of the heat planning department (City of Munich)
• more speakers to be confirmed

15:40 – 15:45 Heat Campaign of the Covenant of Mayors; Allison Le Corre, Energy Cities; 

This session has been crafted to showcase exemplary practices in waste management strategies, aimed at equipping your city with practical insights from pioneering urban centers.  

• Objectives: The session will frame waste management through the concept of circularity, highlighting the interconnectedness of resources and emphasizing the importance of fostering a closed-loop system that reduces environmental impact and enhances resource efficiency. 
• Project involved: ClimaBorough Project 

In their efforts to contribute to a more sustainable future, cities often face the hurdle of having insufficient information to appropriately assess their respective pathways towards climate neutrality.

• Objectives: EUCityCalc partners will present project findings and recommendations to improve dialogue between government levels for climate policies. They’ll introduce a free training program to help cities optimize tool usage and facilitate stakeholder workshops. 
• Project involved: EUCityCalc 

Renewable community projects can come with quite some challenges. During this codevelopment session, participants will be confronted with three pioneering initiatives. Put yourself in the shoes of those cities and remove stumbling blocks around PV or community heat through collective brainstorming. Is this something you can apply in your own town?​

• Projects involved: Sccale203050, Power Up

Agenda

16:15 – 16:25 Welcome and introduction to the Codev methodology; Miriam Eisermann, Energy Cities ​

16:25 – 16:35 Three little-known challenges around PV and heat:​

• Porec (Croatia) : setting up a voucher model for collective energy renovation of a school – Goran Cacic (ZEZ)​
• Valencia (Spain): setting up PV on a cemetery including vulnerable houses – Arturo Zea (Valencia Clima I Energia)​
• Utrecht (Netherlands): developing investment concepts for decentralized district heating – Anne-Marie Zwanink (City of Utrecht)

16:35 – 17:05  Cracking the nut: Codev session in three groups moderated by the three challengers

17:05 – 17:20 Presentation on the action actually developed by each city

17:20 – 17:30 Conclusion and lessons learnt; Sara Giovannini, Energy Cities 

The issue of wise management of resources (energy, land, water, materials) and their equitable sharing has moved to the top of the cities agenda. It invites us to question our needs and reorganize our infrastructure and services to meet them.   

This session on sufficiency is an opportunity to explore what cities are already doing in concrete terms to improve quality of life and consume resources in a fairer and wiser way.  

This session will start from the examples of 5 cities which have chosen to organize different forms of climate assembly. Same temporality, but different questions and methods of questioning, or even aims (for example Lyon’s climate assembly concerns city agents.

The idea will be to discuss the follow-up to be given and how to integrate (or not) more assemblies into local and European democracy (The European Commission also conducts citizen panels and will react in conclusion).