Building resilient cities: how to align competitiveness and sustainability in Europe's energy transition?

With the new EU Institutions taking office, it seems that the main discourse has shifted from the EU Green Deal to competitiveness. This new narrative presents both a challenge and an opportunity for European cities. We want our territories to prosper, but this cannot happen at the expenses of our health and safety. 

Resilient local economies for a competitive Europe 

A city that is thriving is a place where there is community wealth: the needs of its inhabitants are met, preferably by local economic actors. This contributes to reinforcing the local economic system, the social bonds and overall help withstand crisis situations. Resilient local economies are a precondition to EU’s competitiveness. 

This community wealth approach applies to many sectors, but I believe it is quite effective when it comes to energy. Nowadays, very few are questioning the need to have more renewable energy fed into the grid, not only to fight climate change, but also to ensure everyone (businesses and citizens alike) has access to energy at a relatively stable and affordable price, no matter the geopolitical context. But if we want to speed up RES deployments, we need to ensure everyone is on board. Not in my backyard behaviours (NIMBY) are still a reality many local leaders are confronted with. According to our experience in Porto, local ownership of renewable energy is a way for cities to address NIMBY, but also to help tackling energy poverty and contribute to thriving local economies. 

Community energy addressing energy poverty in Porto 

That is why Porto is planning to include all municipal social housing, around 12% of buildings in the municipality, in community energy projects. 6MW of solar power is going to be installed, providing clean electricity to vulnerable families at a lower price. 

While some of the projects are still being tendered, some are already in the implementation phase. For example, the energy community in the Agra do Amial district, active since May 2024, is already providing its members with renewable energy, with around 50% of the energy generated consumed by vulnerable families 

While our ambition is high, we cannot ignore the many challenges we are confronted with – some are common to many European municipalities. Cities frequently lack staff and financial resources to lead highly participatory process, often involving citizens who are very difficult to engage (such as vulnerable households) or even to provide information to their community on energy related issues. This, combined with the complexity of such topics, makes our work even more difficult. 

In addition, burdensome administrative processes and challenging legal frameworks at national level can halt innovative projects and discourage citizens and small businesses from participating. When setting up Porto’s first energy community, it took us two years to get social housing units connected to the solar panels we installed.  

Leveraging on local ecosystems for a more resilient Europe 

Luckily, solutions do exist to ensure local communities can play their part to contribute to a more resilient and democratic Europe. Aside from ensuring legislation is properly transposed so that everyone across Europe can benefit from the same energy rights, we need capacity building programmes, develop local One Stop Shops to inform/engage citizens on the opportunities available to them and energy literacy programs.  

For this to happen, cities will have to access finance, and the integration among the different initiatives at all levels that aim at increasing renewable energy deployment (and energy security) is fundamental. Another important aspect will be to ensure multilevel governance, so that cities can participate in the decision making around what concerns them, and not just been asked to implement. 

In the coming period, the new European Commission is set to work on a new Citizens Energy Package, but also to develop a Clean Industrial Deal and reform the EU Cohesion Policy. This presents as a unique opportunity to align the EU approach to competitiveness with its energy and environmental targets, by establishing proper governance mechanisms and funnelling the necessary resources accordingly.

Recommended links  

1. Energy Cities
2. Local Alliance’s vision for a future-proofed EU budget: empowering local communities
3. Powering communities: principles for a fair, sustainable Citizens’ Energy Package

About the author  

Filipe Araújo is the Vice-Mayor of Porto and City Councillor for Environment, Climate, Innovation and Digital Transition. He is the President of the Board of the municipal companies Porto Ambiente (waste and cleaning company) and Águas e Energia do Porto (water and energy company). He is also President of the Board of Porto Energy Agency and Porto Digital Association.  

Currently, he is Vice-President of Energy Cities network and a member of the Cities Mission Mayors Advisory Group, within the scope of the European Mission 100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities.  

Disclaimer: This article is a contribution from a partner. All rights reserved.

Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the information in the article. The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and should not be considered as representative of the European Commission’s official position.