e-harbours Movement – forging local coalitions around smart energy solutions

Three harbour cities from different European countries investigate the possibilities to broaden the base for smart energy solutions by building coalitions with local stakeholders. New and innovative partnerships between different parties can give smart energy solutions a boost, improving local energy efficiency and enlarging the share of renewables in the energy mix. The Municipalities of Malmö and Zaanstad together with the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) collect best practices from our own communities, and from elsewhere. We investigate what works under what conditions, and provide information to help your community realize local solutions.

The energy system in the European Union needs smart solutions to secure the energy supply. In the last few years, the e-harbours project researched the involvement of large companies and institutions in such smart solutions. Now three partner cities want to take their research to the next level: working towards practical solutions that combine renewable sources, demand management, e-mobility, storage facilities and other techniques. These new local combinations between stakeholders can bring us a big step closer to a non-fossil energy system.
The three harbour cities Hamburg, Malmö and Zaanstad work on the foundation laid by the European programme e-harbours, that has been finalized in February 2014. The e-harbours programme demonstrated the economic and social potential of smart energy networks, which are able to:

• incorporate an increasing amount of renewable energies,
• enable (and benefit from) increased electric mobility,
• be reliable and stable under all circumstances, and
• offer a wide range of possibilities to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy costs.

Browse the e-harbours section of the project website (www.eharbours.eu) for the showcases of e-harbours in the period 2010-2014 and the implementation framework that resulted from the research.