In 2020 and 2021, the Energy Transition Partner City project accompanied a total of ten European municipalities in five city pairs in their progress towards the local energy transition and encouraged them to exchange ideas across national borders. The final conference on 25 March 2021 was scheduled to take place in Berlin, but had to be postponed repeatedly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was finally held entirely in a digital format. In the meantime, a video about why municipalities and European cooperation are relevant for the success of the energy transition was published (see below).
The aim of the "Energiewende PartnerStadt" project was to exchange expertise and experience on the local energy transition across national borders, facilitate technology transfer in the field of renewable energies and support cohesion in Europe.
We would like to thank the representatives of the twin towns of Alheim (DE)/ Dunleer (IRL), Braunsbedra (DE)/ Kozani (GR), Marburg (DE)/ Koscierzyna (PL), Pfaffenhofen (DE)/ Galway (IRL) and Steinhagen (DE)/ Woerden (NL), the Federal Foreign Office and Ellery Studio for bringing our project to life in an inspiring video. Coal phase-out, the transformation of the energy system, climate education for children and young adults, citizen dialogues, energy cooperatives - all these and many more topics were discussed in the European exchange project. We hope that the video will inspire other partner cities to launch common initiatives for the energy transition, identify common points of contact as well as synergies and thus contributing to joint learning about the energy transition and European understanding.
The "Energy Transition Partner City" project, which was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, was a cooperation between the Berlin Governance Platform and the Agency for Renewable Energies. The German Association of Local Utilities (VKU) and the German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DGStB) in the role of 'partners from practice' supported the project activities which aim to strengthen the exchange of knowledge and technology between German and European municipalities through bilateral workshops and multilateral online meetings as well as kick-off and final conferences.