EMPOWER 2.0 is the abbreviation of Empowering the citizens - Towards European Energy Market 2.0 (Enabling More People’s OWnership in Energy tRansition).
The project aims to demonstrate and accelerate the empowerment of citizens to become active energy citizens - and to create local energy communities via existing civil society structures - through development of new solutions (e.g. organisational) and adoption of new, emerging and existing solutions for energy ownership. This will lead to an increase of energy awareness and renewable energy production, and hence reduce the environmental footprint in the North Sea Region.
EMPOWER2.0 is an Interreg North Sea Region funded project with 15 partners, led by Gemeente Zaanstad (NL):
- 7 cities/provinces/intermuncipality organisations (Gemeente Zaanstad (NL), Provincie West-Vlaanderen (BE), Essex County Council (UK), Southend on Sea Borough Council (UK), Middelfart Kommune (DK), Gemeente Haarlem (NL), Intercommunale Leiedal (BE))
- 3 universities (Hogeschool van Amsterdam (NL), University of Southern Denmark (DK), Ghent University (BE))
- 2 companies (Gate2Growth (DK), Graham Oakes Ltd (UK))
- 3 cooperatives (Coöperatieve WeSpark Zaanstreek (NL), Stadsgarage (NL), Coöperatie Kennemer Energie (NL)).
Latest Project News
Zaanstad buys locally generated energy from local cooperative WeSpark
08 February 2021Zaanstad is the first municipality in the Netherlands to purchase energy on a large scale from a local energy cooperative. The local energy cooperativ…
Read moreBenefit Evaluation of PV Orientation for Individual Residential Consumers
08 February 2021A first scientific paper under the EMPOWER2.0 umbrella was published in MDPI. The researcher from UGent was Hakim Azaioud. You can read below the abst…
Read moreFour new cooperative solar roofs with sustainable power for the neighbourhood in Haarlem (Netherlands)
18 January 2021Over the past year, various energy cooperatives from Haarlem worked hard to establish new cooperative solar roofs. Currently, there are 8 cooperative …
Read moreVIDEO: In 6 steps to a solar panel collective
08 January 2021With the Empower 2.0 project, Stichting Stadsgarage focuses on collective solar power installations, but as a 'citizen', how do you set up such a sol…
Read moreVIDEO: International attention - Denmark’s newest and smallest citizen run district heating system
17 December 2020The pilot in the EMPOWER project, the village of Føns, is receiving international attention.
Read more