Empowering municipalities to become energy system coordinators
From solar-powered schools and hospitals to electric vehicles on every street, Europe’s upcoming local energy transition is a great opportunity for cleaner air, local green jobs, and a decarbonised power supply.
But producing, consuming and managing more electricity locally presents new challenges for Europe’s towns and cities. Growing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and electrified heating and cooling is putting unprecedented stress on Europe’s local electricity grids. Add rooftop solar panels with less reliable patterns of generation, and managing these new pressures becomes a city-wide conern. Without action, local authorities could soon be forced to delay or deny plans for new homes, warehouses, shops, hospitals, schools or EV chargers as the grid struggles to cope.
Achieving a smooth local energy transition means local authorities must take on new planning and action responsibilities to build a strong and reliable local energy system. Working with Distribution System Operators (DSOs), local businesses, building owners, and many more stakeholders, local authorities will be the stewards of a fit-for-purpose local energy system.
COPPER will empower Europe’s municipalities to lead their local energy transition
To prepare Europe’s local authorities to coordinate local energy systems, a European-wide alliance of frontrunner municipalities, research organisations and DSO representatives has formed to test new technologies, business models and planning methods.
Funded by the Interreg North Sea programme, the COPPER initiative is the first Europe-wide collaboration to test and demonstrate local energy action plans (LEAP), a bundle of techniques and activities that will enable local authorities to drive locally-powered cities.
Through a four year process, COPPER will:
- Deliver six first-of-a-kind pilots for local authority-led energy planning, from logistic parks to electric vehicle (EV) fleets to entire neighbourhoods.
- Explore ways that Distribution System Operators (DSOs) and local authorities can work together to build a local energy system of storage and flexibility technologies, policies, market incentives and collaborations to help locally-powered cities thrive.
- Build data models and other tools to boost local authority’s capacity to understand and steer their local energy system
COPPER is an Interreg North Sea project co-funded by the European Union.
Project start: October 2023
Project end: October 2027