“It’s about understanding what’s important to citizens in Dublin.”

Dublin counts half a million residents. Its energy agency CODEMA is in the early stages of redesigning the city’s energy landscape by involving the local community. The challenge is huge: How do you decarbonise a capital city that is very much driven by the fast-growing digital economy? In this episode we talk with Donna Gartland who is heading the Dublin energy agency with a staff of 16 people. She explains what changes can be expected in the city and describes how she and her team trigger conversations with citizens around very abstract topics such as district heating using waste heat from data centres.

Dublin’s latest planning and visioning steps are described on the TOMORROW website. TOMORROW is a Horizon 2020 funded project, aiming at empowering local authorities to lead the transition towards low-carbon, resilient and more liveable cities. In the framework of the project, six cities will develop 2050 transition roadmaps together with citizens and other local stakeholders and serve as pilot for the transition of European territories.

This episode was recorded via internet. It is part of “City Stories” which is brought to you by the EU project mPower. mPower explores how cities and citizens can manage the energy transition together – in a fair, clean and democratic way. Participation can happen at various stages: from involving citizens, local NGOs or businesses in the policy design to any stage of the energy value chain: for example as shareholders or even prosumers. The mPower project gets funding from the European Horizon 2020 programme.