Inside Strasbourg’s Democratic Energy Transition

When the municipality of Strasbourg developed their 2050 energy strategy in 2024, they had one key objective in mind: to bring the entire community with them. Citizens and local stakeholders needed to be “equipped” with the right tools & resources, so that everyone could participate to the energy transition. That’s what Gerard Poli Gili, Head of the Renewable Energy Department at the City and Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, shared with us during the first 15-15 Energy Talk last May.

“We saw renewables as the main enabler for the resilience of our territory” said Gerard “and decided that we needed to rely as much as possible on local energy production”. To do that, the city set itself to reduce its energy consumption by 50% (working both on sufficiency and energy efficiency), double the renewable energy produced locally and become fossil free by 2050.

At the end of 2024, the public company “Strasbourg Energies Renouvelables Eurométropolitaines” was created by the municipality and the Eurometropolis, to act as a reference point for the deployment of renewables on public buildings and allow the city to:

• Secure a local green energy supply at a controlled and predictable cost
• Meet the community’s self-consumption needs
• Participate in collective self-consumption operations or feed surplus energy into the grid

RES deployment: not just a technical matter

But the deployment of renewables was not just about technical issues. Strasbourg energy transition had to be democratic. The Eurometropolis moved on different fronts:

• They set up the Territorial Council for the Energy Transition, a space bringing together different local actors active on the topic to take decision around the energy choices for their city.
• They launched EnRScope, a series of workshops on solar PV to develop participants’ knowledge on this technology including information on existing installations, visits, and case studies, but also to discuss compatibility with agricultural activities, biodiversity, landscape and heritage. This programme allows them to identify potential local acceptance issue and address them in advance.
• They motivate citizens and small businesses, providing knowledge to either develop their own small PV projects or become members of the local energy community “Brasseurs d’Energie” (Energy Brewers in English), active since 2020 whose creation was supported by the municipality itself.

Bigger installations, but locally anchored

The Eurometropolis is also going to promote bigger renewables installations. But to ensure they remain locally anchored and deliver concrete benefit to the inhabitants, they are working with experts to develop projects relying exclusively on public and citizen capital. Gerard presented Sunn’Stett, a 5 MWp PV project set to be deployed on an industrial wasteland in Reichstett (a nearby municipality). At the moment, the capital is entirely public, with EUR 5.2 million invested, 80% of which comes from a loan and around 20% invested by the Eurometropolis and Sipener (a majority public shareholding). As soon as the risks will be mitigated, they intend to open it to energy communities and other local authorities in the area.

“We want to make renewables a common good, for mass distribution!”

The city saw the potential of collective self-consumption projects, so they created a local information point to guide citizens and communities in navigating the complex legal context and procedures. The new urban plan also obliges all new buildings to be equipped with solar panels, to rely on renewable heat for 20% of their needs and to connect to the local heating network if located in proximity. Looking at the Eurometropolis’ plan for the development of such networks – 1TWh heat distributed by 2030 – soon that might be the case for many buildings in the city!

Do you want to learn more about Strasbourg’s incredible effort? Listen to this webinar (in French)