https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202431000016
Climate neutral and smart cities: Towards the energy transition
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi” – DEI, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
* National Representative for the EU Mission “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities”.
Published online: 6 November 2024
The goal of achieving global climate neutrality, as outlined by the Conference of Parties and the EU Green Deal, focuses on urban areas and their energy dynamics. Despite efforts, the reliance on fossil fuels highlights the need for a practical transition to diverse energy sources. This includes improving power plant efficiency and integrating renewables like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. Electrifying sectors, diversifying energy sources, deploy storage systems and are crucial to reducing dependency. Research on nuclear energy and hydrogen, is essential too. Europe aims to support 100 cities in achieving climate neutrality by 2030, using innovation, financial tools, and “Climate City Contracts” (CCC) to guide the process. Within this context, renewable energy communities could contribute up to 20% of urban energy by 2030, emphasizing the need for advanced electricity systems/smart grids.
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
