Green Urbanist - Sustainable Placemaking and Urban Rewilding

#104: Local Energy Solutions: Case Studies + Interactive Map

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My guest is Duygu Kutluay, a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fuels. 
We discuss:

  • Why local community projects need to be part of Europe’s energy transition away from fossil fuels.
  • Beyond Fossil Fuels' new interactive map of community-based energy projects that you can access on their website. 
  • Six case studies of local energy projects from across Europe.

More about Beyond Fossil Fuels: https://beyondfossilfuels.org/
Local Energy Solutions Map: https://beyondfossilfuels.org/local-energy-solutions-map/

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Free training: Urban Sustainability in 5 Case Studies

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Duygu (00:00)
But climate action overall and also the energy transition is the only way to secure future we want, self-sufficient, healthy...

prosperous communities. So this is our chance because that kind of a system is not possible under fossil fuels.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (00:36)
In this episode, I'm discussing case studies of community-based renewable energy projects across Europe with Duygu Kutluay from Beyond Fossil Fuels.

Duygu (00:47)
Duygu Kutluay. I work as a campaigner at Beyond Fossil Fields.

Fossil Fields is a campaign coalition of 79 partner organizations.

Our campaign coalition has a common goal to achieve a European-wide, fossil-free, fully renewables-based power system by 2035 that also respects ecosystems and benefits communities.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (01:10)
We discuss why local community projects need to be part of Europe's energy transition away from fossil fuels. Beyond fossil fuels, new interactive map of community based energy projects that you can access on their website. It's really useful if you're looking for inspiration and case studies. And we highlight six case studies of renewable energy projects from across Europe. These range from installing solar panels at railway stations to building retrofit projects and social innovation to ensure communities

get direct benefits from local energy. In your podcast app, you should be able to see chapters within this episode. I've marked with timestamps where each of the case studies is in the episode. If you want to quickly jump around or come back to any case studies, let me know if this is useful for you and I'll try and do it more on future podcast episodes. You can learn more about this work on beyondfossilfuels.org. The link is in the episode description. Also a reminder about my newsletter.

The Green Urbanist Weekly newsletter. You can sign up to that via the link in the episode description to get notified of new episodes when they're released and occasional bonus articles and updates. There's now 500 people on that newsletter list and it's great to have a direct connection with the listeners. For now, enjoy the episode.

Duygu (02:27)
We are a continuation of the Europe Beyond Coal campaign. Thus, we...

kept and built on our previous objectives, as achieving a full renewables based power sector will help us also and the use of fossil fuels across all sectors. This means for us that Europe needs to exit coal by 2030 and fossil gas by 2035. This is an ambitious yet vital and totally deliverable objective in our campaign.

As the reports launched just on the eve of COP this year, once again shows the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions and not only carbon dioxide, but all greenhouse gas emissions is the power sector with 26%. So power sector decarbonisation is always regarded as this relatively lower hanging fruit in climate action, as we already have the mature technologies to replace the existing fossil fuels.

And the decarbonization of the power sector will also play a crucial role for the electrification of other big emitting sectors such as transport and industry. So as the BFF coalition, we work on different aspects of this decarbonization on energy market design, electricity market design and grids on

tackling fossil fuel plants, mines, infrastructure, on political agenda setting, on public finance, private finance, corporates and utilities. And the work I focus on is the local energy solutions. So in local energy solutions, we have a vision that translates this overall power sector vision to a local level.

not only fossil-free renewables based but also one that benefits communities and where local actors are the drivers of the power system transition participate in this transition, deploys themselves in meaningful ways. And we believe this not only unlocks more momentum for renewables locally but also

help deliver the narrative or the implementation by national governments, utilities and others. one of our biggest influences in developing our less vision was our partner Embers work on how the UK got rid of coal and their findings show the more wind turbines that were built, the more the public supported them, the more the public embraced wind.

the easier and cheaper it was to scale it up. So by applying this lesson to large scale or scalable renewable energy projects, we hope to find entry points at the local level to get this what my colleague Shira loves to call virtuous circle spinning. So because while we are going in the right direction, we are not getting there fast enough. So

renewables is simply not being deployed fast enough to meet our 2035 benchmark. Also not in the correct way that we believe they should be in some cases and one of the various reasons for this is the local backlash when it's deployed unfairly or without proper consultation or if the benefits of the projects aren't really shared in meaningful ways among the local community. So we don't

We simply want to replace like with like, like the fossil fuel energy system that only a few profit from but most pays the cost. We want to replace it with renewable energy sources that communities are getting the benefits from, supporting it, wanting to deploy themselves or in their communities.

as energy transition, especially the renewable energy solutions, offers ample opportunities for actors of any size to take part in and be implemented in various ways. We want that beauty to be reflected in the future of the energy system globally that is fair, clean and accessible by all.

So, one of the other reasons why we believe what we call renewables with benefits isn't as widespread is also because most of the local actors or smaller actors are unaware of the benefits that renewables can bring or how it can act as a solutions multiplier. So, not necessarily making the connection to

current problems such as energy poverty or building local businesses resilience and competitiveness against energy crisis etc. renewables energy deployment. So we want to showcase more examples or we want to build on making these examples more widespread so that there is more support for

that communities are more aware of their opportunities, the smaller actors are more aware and also of course we would like to systemically support local actors with accessing finance, funding or technical support easily. yeah overall we want I think to make fair renewables more visible.

but also make it the norm rather than a nice to have in this energy transition.

Ross (07:58)
That's a really, really good introduction. Thank you for that. I mean, thank you so much for the work that you do and all your colleagues, because it's absolutely essential. think something interesting that you talked about there was the balance between the sort of large scale grid scale renewable energy. And I think might conjure images for people of the sort of huge wind farms out off the coast or huge solar arrays and that kind of thing versus the sort of really localized infrastructure like rooftop solar panels.

neighbourhood scale, renewable energy, that kind of thing. Is it fair to say that there's a balance that we need between these two interventions?

Duygu (08:33)
Exactly. The challenge ahead of us, we may call it so, is large-scale energy transition.

is big and would require all actors to be part of this transition and all scales of renewable energy solutions being deployed. Like you said, smaller scale, community scale renewable energy projects are more than welcome and there should be support for these to make it happen. But also larger scale utility projects, utility scale projects has to also

have in mind the neighboring communities at least not only respect the ecosystems they are located in but also how to contribute to the local communities and economies. otherwise it would be just replacing what we now have with other energy production technologies just better for the climate with lower emissions.

So this is one of the, think, lines of civil society climate NGOs asking for this energy transition.

Ross (09:37)
Okay, we'll get in as we talk about the case studies, we'll talk about a lot more of the benefits of specific interventions. So I'll save my questions for that. So tell us a bit about the local energy solutions map. What is it and what are you hoping to do with it?

Duygu (09:53)
And so we launched the local energy solutions map earlier this year and it's an interactive tool. It's hosted on our website. It showcases inspiring examples of how individual communities, municipalities, businesses are implementing solutions already in Europe. It currently features around 250 examples.

And it covers a diverse range of technologies, sites, actors. So from solar rooftops to wind farms, from railways to car industrial sites, reuse, former coal sites, to just public buildings, energy efficiency applications, etc. So it's a wide range. And our goal is to make this wealth of renewable energy knowledge and experience accessible to everyone. Because...

Too often successful case studies and toolkits exist, but they are buried either in dense reports or out of reach in some website after their launch. So our tool to address this issue by providing a user-friendly searchable map that allows users to find the information they need quickly and also refer back to the original site to go further in depth.

if they are willing to. So we provide practical solutions that can be replicated, scaled up or used as positive benchmarks so that once local actors or anyone really willing to act to deploy themselves or deliver a campaign pushing some other authority to deploy renewables.

They can always refer back to the map to see whether similar examples have been done in Europe. They can also search for neighboring countries rather than some further away country. So that was one of our aims. And the map has four main categories.

One is technology, so what renewable energy technologies are used for the project. Not only wind and solar, but we have solutions that address flexibility, storage, grids, heating and energy efficiency as well. We also have a category on sites, so where this project is being implemented, whether it's on a building or whether it's on an infrastructure, land, agricultural land, water bodies, etc.

The third category we have is on actors. So who are the main actors involved in this project? it's like municipalities or public institutions or residential households, so private actors but on a smaller scale or larger scale like large companies, SMEs, utilities. And we have examples on community owned.

renewable energy solutions or housing associations, other kinds of cooperatives as well. I think the final category is key features and it's particularly relevant one for linking these examples to solutions to local problems and there under key features we try to highlight what makes this project.

noteworthy, whether it addresses energy poverty, whether it improves air quality or boosts local economy. So all kinds of benefits we believe these renewable energy projects can deliver for the communities. It's a live dynamic tool, so we will keep on adding more examples and updating the map.

And especially on some of the categories we have more examples than other categories. We are not quite sure whether it's because we couldn't access these kind of stories or these stories don't exist or these examples don't exist. For example, on technology we have

A lot of examples like 80, I think more than 80 out of the 250 examples are on rooftop solar. We also have examples on ground mounted solar and onshore wind. But when it comes to flexibility, storage, grids, offshore wind, it's a bit harder to find examples that connect with community benefits. So this is something

we take as a homework to ourselves, to our campaign. One, to try to find more examples, but also to carry this into our other work areas that, as I mentioned earlier, to our colleagues working on grids or to our colleagues working on plants, mines, regions, to showcase or pressure.

for these kind of projects to be more community friendly as well, how to develop guidelines to ensure more examples come out of these sectors. As for sites, we try to provide more examples on zones that can be easily deployed.

at the local level because as we all know renewables require more space when it comes to energy production and EU has this ambitious, not enough but ambitious renewables targets so they want to double their renewable capacity.

their member states to develop these repower EU plans and designate areas, etc. So we try to highlight areas where it's closer to local actors and communities. Also because there are ample studies out there by the Commission, by our colleagues in civil society, that these kind of places

have the potential, at least the technical potential to deliver or to help deliver on these targets like rooftops is as I said the first one that comes to our mind but also for example we paid we try to pay closer attention in our map to railroads and road infrastructure.

because the JRC study shows that there is more than 400 gigawatts of capacity that is possible to be done there. For example, that's why we highlight the Energy Garden example in London where they have been transforming rail-based stations into not just solar-powered green spaces but also engaging with the

community to highlight sustainable food production and investing back the revenues from the renewable energy production to local problems. We also have like relatively novel but big carry that carry big potential.

examples, we try to also prioritize them in adding to our map like agri-pv or floating solar examples. So yeah, on sites we try to make sure we have examples of a bit of unconventional at this moment places that already have solar and that can be replicated relatively fast in urban settings.

in other settings that would help solve the perceived space problem of renewables. And on actors, we have a lot of examples from municipalities and energy communities. We would like to expand it more to include local businesses, SMEs.

great examples from SMEs that show not only on-site production for the business but also benefiting the communities around them. we had polling in six European countries two years ago after the big energy crisis and three out of four SMEs there see renewables as a way to

shield themselves from an energy crisis of any kind and they are willing to act if there support. So, we see there is a big potential there where SMEs can act with the required support but also implement such projects that would be more meaningful for the communities around them as well.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (18:31)
At this point in the conversation, we move into talking about case studies of local renewable energy solutions. The first case study is called Gare Maritime in Brussels, in Belgium, and it is the revitalization of a vacant historic freight station into a mixed use space, beautiful architecture that also incorporates renewable energy.

Duygu (18:51)
And it was once a vacant historic

station. So it was, think, at one time in history Europe's largest station. And now it's being turned into a vibrant, sustainable space and it's like more than three hectares. So there's shops.

event spaces, office spaces but also there is a solar production there. Not on the rooftop but on the facades which is very nice to see in the middle of a city making use of this abandoned site for community use but also to

have a first-hand renewable energy generation in the middle of the city that gives back to the community.

Ross (19:40)
Garra Maritime Brussels example is just absolutely beautiful. Like it's such a stunning building and the architects did such a great

job of taking what was a shell of an industrial shed basically from the start of the 20th century and turning it into a really beautiful space that has food markets and and I think it different uses within it as well as having as you mentioned the solar production.

Duygu (19:47)
taking one with a shin.

Ross (20:03)
So I think, you know, it's, it's a common challenge, I guess, that many cities are facing, which is infrastructure that is vacant, that has maybe been is not needed anymore is run down. And, know, part of the energy transition, I suppose, is also about

reducing the kind of energy that we're using in demolishing and rebuilding structures. And this idea that if you have a building, it's better to hold on to the materials, refurbish it, you know, that sort of circular economy aspect as well. So that's like a great case study of just lots of, lots of really sustainable principles happening at once, which is lovely.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (20:41)
next case study is called Energy Garden in London, where they're transforming railway stations into hubs for food and solar energy production.

Duygu (20:51)
they have been working since 2011 on transforming London's railway stations into food and energy hubs. So there are both solar installations and vegetable gardens.

And these projects are run by locals. So there was almost 30 projects the last time we checked the source. And it also provides hands-on training and educational programs. So like, especially encouraging young people to cultivate skills in sustainable food, health, living and renewable energy. So it's nice to turn this...

communal space or a space that is of landmark value, I don't know how to call it, into spaces that engage with communities for this shift.

And it's also good to see these examples that talk to overall climate action as well, because most of the time some perceive climate action as giving up on their lifestyle or sacrificing.

like some of the things that people have, but it's only contrary, like when done right or when implemented correctly. But climate action overall and also the energy transition is the only way to secure this future we want, self-sufficient, healthy...

prosperous communities. So this is our chance because that kind of a system is not possible under fossil fuels. So these kind of examples, I think, because most people don't see bigger climate measures in action, but these kind of things, projects make it visible for society to show that this is a win-win for

all involved. This can be a win-win for all involved. that's one of the reasons urban projects in urban settings are really valuable, not only for the sheer generation numbers, etc., but also helping shift the narrative and perceptions of people that travel to these destinations.

Also have lots of examples on stadiums for example. And this is also like once in every two weeks a big local population goes to these stadiums to enjoy what they feel very connected to and to have renewables energy production there is also a very good thing not only for

benefiting the clubs or the infrastructure needed for sports club but also for shifting the narrative at the local level. So we value these kind of projects a lot.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (23:41)
The next case study we dive into is in Athens, Greece. It's called the Green Urban Quarter Pilot Project, and it's a project to do a renovation, a retrofit of low-income residential buildings to be much lower carbon and lower energy use.

Duygu (23:56)
So this is a neighborhood project that consulted architects to renovate low-income residential buildings to be more sustainable. And it focuses on energy savings and improving the local microclimate using insulation and double glazing. And it has some real-life impact of

reducing the heating energy by 75 % and cooling energy by 35%. And it's really a good example to highlight that significant energy efficiency improvements in residential areas and how it can help the low-income households in a community.

Ross (24:39)
Yeah, and I think on this one as well is in terms of just putting it back into that bigger perspective. There's been a lot of studies done on the kind of costs associated with, we'll say, doing a wide scale retrofit of all the homes in Britain, for instance, or all the homes in a particular region. And of course, it's incredibly expensive. It's billions of pounds or euro to do these things on a big scale. And so the next question is, well, OK, if we couldn't retrofit every building or every home, what do we prioritize?

And of course, from a social justice point of view, you would imagine we would prioritize low income households, social housing, public housing, elderly, people who are elderly and therefore more or have health conditions that make them more vulnerable to the weather. So this is a great example of, yeah, it's maybe a one-off.

know, really, really good example of how you can retrofit a building to be extremely low energy use. But it's a model that can then be duplicated in other places and, you know, prioritized for people who really need that. So I really like that. And again, it's the thing as well of it's really nicely designed. It's a beautiful building. It was nominated for an architecture award. So it's showing to people that actually these sustainable interventions can improve

Duygu (25:49)
It's showing to people that actually the sustainable.

Ross (25:53)
the cityscape can improve, can be beautiful, can you know be pieces of art in themselves as well.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (26:01)
In this next case study, we take a break from the more architecture and infrastructure focused projects, and we're actually looking at more social innovation. So this case study is in the city of Cadiz in Spain, where the local government has been tackling the high levels of energy poverty within the city through participatory consensus based decision making on their energy policy. We explain what that actually means in Bractas and also a social discount to reduce the energy costs for vulnerable families.

Duygu (26:32)
maybe following up on these energy poverty connections, we can give an example from Cadiz that is also on participatory decision making and taking decisions at the community level by consensus on energy projects. So in Cadiz, Spain, the local government established these energy poverty communities.

to address the high energy poverty levels. And this committee involves civil society organizations, energy specialists, municipality representatives, and focuses on this democratic debate and consensus-based decision-making for energy policies. So they launched a social discount that to reduce the energy costs for vulnerable families.

This is a good way to show how these kind of projects can consider the individual energy needs. And this program also has one other key feature that is remarkable that it employs long-term job seeking individuals as energy advisors to assist households with energy saving measures. So this is.

not only good for those who are involved but also as said in ensuring broader public support, ensuring effective participation in the city's energy transition effort.

Ross (27:56)
Can you just explain what a social discount is?

Duygu (28:01)
And so a social discount is calculated on the household's energy needs and energy consumption and having a discount based on their income level so that they don't pay the bill as it is.

Ross (28:17)
some, okay, that makes sense. it's like a means tested, I guess to put it in technical language, it's like a means tested discount. you get the people who most need it get a reduction in their bills, which sounds like good common sense thing to

I think these sort of more...

not so much technology based, but more like social innovation projects I find really interesting as well. I had a guest on a couple of months ago, who was looking at net zero carbon neighborhoods and how at the neighborhood scale we could start to retrofit in renewable energy technologies and that kind of thing. And he was saying that when they went through the case studies, one of their big findings was it isn't so much the technological innovation that we need because we already have the technology.

It's the social innovation and the financial innovation and those sort of more...

hidden things that we need to innovate in to come up with new ways of making sure that communities can really have control of these things, can get the benefit of these things, can manage these things locally and also get funding to do them, et cetera. So I really, like this idea from idea from Cadiz as a very social justice oriented approach to the energy transition.

Duygu (29:25)
And I really like that episode of your podcast on the neighborhood level decarbonization. It's both for power and heating. think neighborhood solutions really offer great opportunities and we have in our plans to reach out to them to include more of their examples in the map as well.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (29:46)
For this next case study, we're going to Poland and looking at Eurocentrum, which is an innovative industrial hub that is pioneering renewable technologies and helping to shift the region away from coal dependency.

Duygu (30:00)
Passing on to an example from Poland because as I previously mentioned we used to be Europe beyond coal as beyond fossil fuels and Poland usually regarded as a laggard country in terms of coal developments but also they broke the record for solar installations last year so it shows

that there is an appetite for the renewable energy transition even in coal dependent regions. And one example how that can be done that we picked from our map was the innovative industrial hub in Upper Silesia called Eurocentrum and they are

relying more and more on renewable energy for power and heating and try to maintain sustainable industrial practices. They use solar panels and heat collectors that reduces the utility costs, achieves energy self-sufficiency and reduce dependence on coal. It also serves as a training and research center for renewable energy technologies and this helps shift

the regional focus from coal to cleaner energy sources. So, when we talk about just transition of coal regions and not leaving anyone behind, these kind of projects where renewables can offer solutions are also very valuable. So, this only this offers

Eurocentrum for us offers a model for these industrial operations transition to greener practices but also to show how renewable energy can play a role in transitioning justly out of coal in regions dependent on.

Ross O'Ceallaigh (31:52)
And our final case study in this episode that we discuss is Lethans Wind Farm in Scotland. This is a rural example and it's an example where a new wind farm of 22 wind turbines will help a just transition for this former mining community by offering traineeships, skills and local funding for the community.

Duygu (32:12)
And I think one last example will be a wind example from Scotland. We picked the Lytton's Wind Farm which has a training program for 60 people on the ground and then

I don't know if it's still the case but the last time we checked to include the farm in our map it was the tallest wind farm approved in Scotland today and so again like in Poland it is aiming to address unemployment in a former mining community so providing opportunities for local young people but also

They create skills and training funds and contribute to local community benefit funds. So we see wind and solar projects, how they can be part of the just transition plans in former mining regions.

Ross (33:13)
I like this one as a more rural example. as you know, I think as you mentioned earlier that they're there sometimes they're very large, know, the very large sort of utility scale installations can sometimes can often feel quite separated from communities that are nearby. And I'm guessing it's often rural communities that are the ones, you know, most directly impacted by these. So this is, again, a nice example of maybe a nice

case study that people could learn from around it's not okay so it's not so much that the community are maybe deploying the wind turbines themselves because it's just on a different scale but they are you know there is benefits in terms of the jobs and you know moving them into new industries that's part of the just transition as well having local jobs that weren't there before so yeah that's very exciting and hopefully something that can be can be replicated elsewhere

Duygu (34:00)
And there are very exciting measures at the European level as well. Some countries like Belgium acted faster on that but also at the European level. Some decisions that help communities become part of these larger installations or larger projects. So there is this non-price criteria development in Tenders.

where the utilities or developers or owners of these projects have to ensure certain percentage of community ownership in these projects. So this will be, this is something that we are working on to push, but these kind of measures will also help local communities having access more to these kind of projects. Because to be honest,

There is a big power imbalance between communities and developers, especially in rural settings that you mentioned in these larger projects. So the way these communities benefit from these projects have to be ensured by higher authorities like national government. So it has to be written somewhere so that these projects also include

not only community benefits but community ownership so direct benefits from these projects. So these are there are very exciting opportunities or discussions around countries and at the EU level as I said for onshore wind for offshore wind so these are normally would be out of

reach or site maybe but somehow being

brought back to the communities, making it possible for them to engage and benefit from.

Ross (35:41)
Excellent. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Great. Well, we've kind of coming to the end of the podcast there. And thank you so much for sharing those those case studies. I'll be you know, hopefully people find the links in the episode in the episode description useful to go and learn more about specific ones that are relevant to them. But do you have any final thoughts or recommendations for people listening?

Duygu (36:00)
We of course would love if the listeners come visit the map because it's a dynamic map that we want more examples to be included. So if they see any examples around to let us know to include in the map but also use our map to share with the local authorities, businesses, whoever they see fit.

that would be really great. And yeah, we hope these kind of examples are so very many across all geography that we don't need maps for anymore because it will be the norm of any renewable energy project implemented rather than an example to be showcased.

Ross (36:45)
Definitely, we'll get there sooner or later. Excellent, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. I'll wrap things up there. And yeah, is there like a website that you would usually point people towards just to know more about your work?

Duygu (36:57)
our website at beyondfossilfields.org slash local energy solutions map or the website itself has resources. We have also other sources on the website on coal mines and coal power plants. We have a database and map on gas plants and plants.

Ross (37:02)
Okay, great.

Duygu (37:22)
We have a government commitment tracker. We will launch soon utility trackers. yeah, we hope the listeners find our website and tools beneficial.