Stitching the Energy Transition in Cities - Eduardo Blanco | Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Description

Cities are on the front line of the energy transition. They are also where energy poverty is most visible.

In this episode of Energ’Ethic, Marine Cornelis talks with Dr Eduardo Blanco from Energy Cities, coordinator of the POWER UP project.

The episode covers:

Social energy players and new local business models
Municipal leadership and public risk-taking
Neighbourhood-scale solutions
Concrete lessons from European pilot cities

Eduardo explains why building fair energy systems looks less like engineering and more like embroidery. Slow, precise and deeply human.

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Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

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Transcription

Speaker #0
I have the feeling that engagement and also all these pilot innovation projects is like doing embroidery. You do a stitch here, you do a stitch there, you do a stitch here, you do a stitch there, and you need to keep going. And just at the end, you're going to have the full picture and like your solution will look like something. But the smallest stitches you do, like the engagement that you do here, also not only engagement with the citizens, but also with the different stakeholders, with your social services, with the energy services. All these small connections, sometimes they take time, they take a little bit tired about it, but then you are going to see that it composes the full picture and that these small contributions make it work.
Speaker #1
The energy transition is happening, but is it fair? Is it working for people like you and me, or just for big market players? Welcome to Energetic. I am Marine Cornelis, an expert in energy and climate policies. and I bring you the voices shaping our energy future. Activists, scientists, policymakers, the real people making real change, often against the odds. Here, we do not settle for surface-level takes. We dig into the challenges, the solutions, and the lessons that do not always make the headlines. And in doing so, we rediscover something vital, our ability to trust in institutions, to believe in change, and to reclaim our power to act. Because if we want just resilience, if we want to just transition, we need to understand what it takes to make it happen. And more importantly, we need to believe that we can. Let's get into it. Today on Energetic, we travel to the places where cities learn, adapt, and sometimes surprise us. Our guest today is Dr. Eduardo Blanco, a project manager at Energy Cities. and the driving force behind the PowerUp project, which have been working with five European municipalities to rethink how communities support people in energy poverty. Eduardo has moved across disciplines and continents. He began his career in Brazil, working on urban development, waste system and environmental planning. He later pursued advanced studies in France, focusing on sustainable mobility, urban ecology and regenerative design. This experience shaped his belief that cities become fairer when technical solutions meet social needs. Eduardo is a doer by nature. He likes ideas that become useful objects and strategies that become practical support. So his work blends engineering, design and community engagement with quite a rare sense of care. So he managed projects on energy poverty, clean energy district and the role of social sciences in the Greenteel. This place him at the center of Europe's conversation on trust, vulnerability and local action. So in this episode, we explore how cities can build the right conditions for sufficiency and dignity. We will discuss social energy players, the everyday realities of households in energy poverty and hardship, and the lessons that travel from Brazil to Europe. Eduardo brings a fresh, practical and deeply human view on what an equitable transition should look like. Eduardo, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Thank you very much, Marine. It's a pleasure to be around.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much, Eduardo. So you've been describing yourself as a doer in a world that often gets stuck in theory. So where does this drive to materialize ideas come from, whether in cities or through your own projects at home?
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure. It's a very good question. I think a lot of this came from my experience working with cities, actually. Back in Brazil, when I started to work as like urban planning environmental engineer, lots of my work was on planning, exactly, doing paperwork, doing planning strategy, long-term planning. And I was very disappointed to see them staying there in the paper, in the drawer, and not really getting into action. I think plans are definitely needed and necessary to set the long-term strategy, but they need to be dynamic and they need to have also this dimension of testing, piloting, going to the ground and doing things and seeing what works, what does not work. So a lot came to this, and this was also what moved me to working on our pilot project as PowerApp that we're going to talk a bit later that has really concrete implementation on the ground. And then also, yeah, from a more personal perspective, my mom has always in her life doing handicraft. entire life. And then I think it also reflects on me. I really like to do things and to work with my hands and to create something. So like from visual arts to any kind that I can use my hands to do, I'm always doing it. I think this being at the world really reflects who I am, at least at this moment.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's great also, because I mean, at the end of the day, the cities are exactly where we are evolving as human beings. Like, there are a lot of... of things around us that at the end of the day, they shape us as well. So it influences our daily lives. And now we are not, of course, physically in the same space, but in a way, there's nothing more tangible than the city and its building and the fact that it's a composition of a lot of things that people have been doing and are doing every day. So that's a very nice, like, circling back.
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure, because actually it's a... It's a two-way thing because we change the space every day. Like, even if you don't think about it, we change the space continually. And the space changes as well. So how we perceive this space that we have been changing, it changes us. So it's very interesting. And I think also cities and changing the space, the way we use this space, is something that everyone can relate to. Everyone is, the majority today of the population, is an urban dealer. They live in the urban space. They have an argument. They have an opinion about it. the energy, about the mobility, about the public space. For me, it's a very topic that I really like and enjoy working with.
Speaker #1
And you have crossed many disciplines, right, in your job, in your studies as well. So you've done, you've worked on environmental engineering, on sustainable mobility, on urban ecology, on biomimicry. So it's a lot of doing, lots of things, a lot of very tangible sometimes a lot of observation and then bringing them back into something like to perspective and so on. So what unifies your way of looking at cities and their blind spots? What do you see when you see a city?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I see a complex system, actually. I think it's very, very particular. And sometimes when we work in like European projects, in projects in general, you see things very clustered. Like I'm working now on energy. I'm working now on mobility. I'm working now on nature and biodiversity. But everything is connected in a city. Impossible to, it's okay for the human mind and for our Cartesian way of doing and thinking. Sometimes we need to separate, but we can't forget that things are related. And I think this is, yeah, also what came across my experience in my work is really seeing things with all their synergies that they have and the trade-offs. Because if you do a mobility, project, to do a sustainable energy project, to put a PV in an area, in a green area. There is an impact in the nature, there is a trade-off, there is something that you need to think, there is going to impact the public space, it will impact the life of people. So everything is connected and sometimes we just narrow these clusters and we don't manage to, we don't have time also, or sometimes, to see these synergies and these links, but they are there and I think this is the magic side of of cities and the work with urban areas in general. But then also in my perspective, I think all this work is also quite like being a doctor, a health doctor. Because the same thing, you need to do a diagnostic first, you need to understand which is the condition of your patient, which are the problems, which are the strains, how their immune system is working, and then to do something, inform it by reality, It's informed by decision. by the real context that's there. And there is no one single answer. Every urban area, every city is unique as every patient. So really, I think this is also a very important point that I have been seeing in the work I'm doing up to now.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and that's interesting because it's not only each city that is unique, but also each neighborhood within the cities that, I mean, you can have... vast differences between a neighborhood and another. And so I've been working with the New European House Facility for a few months now. And there is this strong neighborhood approach that I find extremely interesting because, you know, in the energy field or in the housing fields until very recently, we were talking about the energy consumption of households, like the retrofitting of one building. and Now the European level understands that it's not really working. It has to be something that brings more socialization. And somehow the neighborhood is also a great place to do that. What is your understanding of the neighborhood's approach? And maybe you can kind of drive us into your difference of perspective. Because you come from Sao Paulo and it's very different from what you see also here in Europe, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, definitely. I really like the neighborhood scale. All my PhD was around this, around neighborhood transition, neighborhood level. I think that, yeah, the neighborhoods, I think it's a good challenge for us now. We know now how to manage buildings, how to make buildings sustainable, regenerative, net zero and everything. But the neighborhood, it helps us to bridge a bit the scale, to go to a scale that enlarges. the impact and also it's easier to integrate all the social dimensions and economic dimensions because The definitions of neighborhood varies. Like you can have any kind of definitions. But for me, it's an area that also has a very specific social dynamics. The social fabric is working in a specific way. So it's not only geographical, but it's also social. It has also the cultural dimension, the historical dimension of the neighborhood. So, yeah, the neighborhood brings this perspective that also I work with a lot with nature-based solutions, biodiversity. so it's a scale that's more relevant for this innovation on biodiversity, because biodiversity, a single tree will not help much, even if it helps, but the structural change is much more interesting, and then you catalyze effects that are more tangible. So I think that this direction that European Bauhaus is going through neighborhoods is very interesting. And then, yeah. The reality of neighborhoods in Brazil and Europe is very, very, very different. Not only the neighborhoods, but the social reality as well. I think scale, from perspective scale, like the size are very different. Usually neighborhoods in Brazil, they are big. Even sometimes they are more homogeneous. You have like more distinction between areas that are more residential, more industrial, more commercial. But the size is huge and the dynamics on thinking about public transportation. Yeah, economy. It's very, very different because we have also lots of informal economy still taking place in this place. So, yeah, it's changed completely the shape. So that's also why I think you need really to understand the reality of the neighborhood, to be able to propose something there that works for the people living there.
Speaker #1
That's really so interesting. And that makes me think of this kind of 15-minute city. It used to be like very trendy a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's as trendy now. better. This kind of whatever you can do within 15 to 20 minutes, walking, cycling, etc. That becomes your reality, right? It's a very interesting approach, especially when you take the time to live your city, right? It might be different when you are always rushing and looking after time and running from places to places. but whenever you can feel... And experience your city, what you explore first is usually your own neighborhood and that makes it relatable and you see and you witness the change. So as a human being, it becomes really what shapes your daily experience, right? What you just mentioned about nature-based solution and biodiversity, etc. I find it extremely interesting when we talk about climate adaptation. And the fact that climate change is heating cities way more than it is heating the countryside. The difference of temperature can be 7 to 10 degrees between cities and the countryside. So having a neighborhood approach to buildings, to planting trees, to the construction of bicycle paths, etc. is also very relevant. And the parks, for instance, are something... usually people take a lot of pride of and they are profoundly in their neighborhoods like our community park almost like But i'm talking from a western european perspective. Is it something that you have analyzed in other contexts in europe?
Speaker #0
Yeah Oh, I think the the 15 minute city the amazing concept but also at the same time that I think it's great I think it's very uh european centered now. Uh, it works for europe but then yeah, I think this all these topics apply it can be applied everywhere but the challenge is where we are starting from it's very different from one area to another i think in europe in general today we are more or less homogeneous on this but then when you go to south america or even with when you go to other european countries territories not countries like french kuyana or rio nunez island that are french uh lands that are not in the european continent the reality is also quite different You should think, yeah, you should think, for example, even where I come from in Brazil, to walk 15 minutes from my house, we are going to be in the middle of houses and that's it. We're still going to be in the same area. There's nothing to do besides going to the house of someone else. So it needs to require a more structural change in the way of planning, the way of doing, promoting the diversity of the space. So, yeah, I think the concept is great, but the challenge, where do we are starting to reach this target? changes a lot from one country to another and also from one smaller city to one bigger city for example paris is great in the diversity of spaces of uses of like being able to do things within within the closest of your home like having green spaces having services having public administration but when now i live in lila The situation is different. I don't have a green space 15 minutes from my place walking. I have to take my bike. 15 minutes. Okay, still 15 minutes, but it requires a bit more effort. So different sides of city, different types of resources, challenges where we are starting. The starting point is definitely different. And I think it also applies to energy poverty, energy transition, energy poverty.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's a very nice loop. And I love that you live in Lille. That's where I studied. And I saw the transformation at the beginning of the year 2000. And I haven't had the opportunity to come back in years, but I would love to see how it has evolved because there were a lot of actions being undertaken. I moved there when Lille became European Capital of Culture. And that was quite an interesting experiment for the city to reinvent itself. So I think that's also worth mentioning that there are really some cool initiatives. At European level, that really brings some new and fresh air into city planning. I think it's also something that we may tend to forget that, you know, this kind of people gathering to help change things. That's very, very inspiring. So that's also exactly what you've been doing with the project Power Up that we just mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. So it's a project. where you have been working with five pilot cities to test some models to help people in energy poverty. You've been developing social energy players, so different forms of energy enablers. So can you tell us more about PowerUp and what came out of it? Yeah,
Speaker #0
so I think the introduction is great. I think just to summarize what PowerUp is, The idea of the project was really to bring this social dimension to everything that's energy business today. So today, when you produce energy the standard way, you are an energy producer, you have the distributor. So you are just giving us services and people can subscribe to your service and get energy from you. And then we just forget that thousands and thousands of people today in Europe, they're not able to really use the energy that they need to meet their energy needs. So they are They need to reduce their consumption because they can't pay. So they're going to heat less their homes or to cool less their homes during summer as well, or to limit their appliances used at their place for cooking, for lighting. And this impacts the life and health of people in a very strong way. These people are not you and me and probably not the people listening to the podcast, maybe, yes, but they are a specific... Bye. types of people that are facing these vulnerabilities. This population, they change over time. And so, yeah, so we need different types of easiness and strategies to bring this population that's facing vulnerabilities to the energy transition. Today, Europe's trying to do an energy transition, but this energy transition is not happening for everyone. So myself, I can pay an energy provider that's doing sustainable energy, that's like energy Cooperative that's producing energy locally. But these people that are facing an energy vulnerability, they actually don't manage to use the energy they need. So thinking about using a sustainable energy provider, shifting for renewables, it's not on their priority. It's not on their list, not on their minds. So a lot of power up mindset was how to design a business that make it possible, that provides equity, provide everything that these vulnerable people need. to be able to take part in the transition. Like taking part in the transition should not be a burden for them. So it should be natural. It should be, okay, it's just there, a choice. I can jump in the transition as well. So this was a lot what we were trying with these different cities across Europe with different models and schemes to see how we can do this, how it could work, how it could be tailored to each locality and how it could also take shape. in a concrete example.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and the cities had different starting points and they were located in different EU countries. So essentially the idea was to make the energy transition, like using energy locally produced and something as evident as going to, let's say, the local shop. or the local school. So something like the natural choice for people, right? And these places where, please correct me if I'm mistaken, but the one place in Belgium, one in Ausha.
Speaker #0
In Ausha, yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, there was also one in Spain, in Valencia, and the other two, you know, you have to tell them. Plus, there were also two that were learning from it.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so as you said, we had one in Belgium, that's Ziclo, one in Czechia, that's Rosnoff, one in Spain, that's Valencia. Then we had Italy, the southern area of Italy, in the Campania area. and then we had, yeah, it was Naples and then we had one in... Netherlands in Ireland that didn't work and finally the project then became an observer. And we had another one that it was in North Macedonia. At the start of the project, we also had tried to do a pilot there in Iscopia, the capital of North Macedonia. It also didn't work at all and became an observer, a replicator. So Netherlands and North Macedonia are more replicators, observers than pilots. Then we had real power pilots that went over the full way and the arrive at Judail with something on the ground.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and they did vastly different projects. I found what your colleagues did in Valencia absolutely impressive, not only because of the scale, but because of what they managed to implement, right? They used some of the most, let's say, collective and personal space. of the city to then benefit more people. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's amazing. I can give a bit more of an example. I think it links a lot with what we were talking about synergies before. So it's really existing infrastructure that's there, not being used. Like, it's being used. So to break the mystery, they installed PVs in cemeteries. So they had a very specific structure of cemeteries with some buildings where you put the ashes and the remains of... of people that left us and these buildings they have a roof that's free it's not being used and the sun is hitting there all the time every day in valencia it's very sunny so the potential was high so the municipality decided to install pvs in these roofs and to use this the energy produced to cover the need some part of the energy needs of the municipality of municipal buildings but uh one share specific share of this energy is going directly to people in facing energy vulnerabilities so they don't need to pay their energy bill anymore that they need to apply to receive these uh but much more structural than giving only an energy check or a voucher for paying the energy something that's a punctual ad they enter in the system they enter in a support system that they they're going to benefit for the... the longer that they need to be to receive this support and it's easier as possible for them so the social like the the social services work hands-to-hands to the energy services of the municipality to be able to identify the households that are in need to recruit them to explain them how it will uh work to build the trust that's needed as well uh and to bring them in as easiest as possible for them and once they are in they are just benefiting from
Speaker #1
renewable energy from an asset that was there uh that was there waiting for uh for a better use yeah that's that's really amazing because they are that's like the municipality really had to convince the family to to do this kind of work because it's it's like of course it's the most personal and the most uh you have to do it with so much so much respect but they they managed to do it and I really find it inspiring. You don't need like to to cover lands. You don't need to change anything, make anything complicated. You don't need to displace people or their remains. Of course, you make the most of what is already there. And that is exactly what sustainability should be about. The other projects were a little different, but also very successful. Let's move on to, I don't know, Northern Europe. Let's go to Belgium.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so Belgium was a very particular case because we were working in Niclo, that's a city in the Flemish area of Belgium. And the city they had already for a while been engaged in the renewable transition. And they had bought shares of a wind turbine from an energy cooperative, from EcoPower. And the municipality has been engaged in interesting about like how to tackle energy poverty in a more structural and systemic way than like just with support, punctual support. support for the households. And then their scheme was to create... a rolling fund to be able to the households to join the energy cooperative that was producing energy with this wind turbine, benefit from the energy without having to pay in advance. Because to enter an energy cooperative and benefit from their tariffs and from the green energy production, there is an energy fee. If I'm not wrong, for EcoPower it was 250 euros. Yeah,
Speaker #1
it can be very high for certain people.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. for like, I always like to remind that it's not me and you. Sometimes I give conferences and people say, ah, yeah, it's €250, I can pay. But yeah, it's not me and you. So then what happens is that the municipality, as they have shares of this wind turbine, they allocate the share that they have to this household. This household, they start to benefit from the energy from the energy cooperative and they pay, they repay this prepayment the municipality made for them every month. over a long period. So they pay three euros per month. That's integrated in their energy bill. Three euros per month goes back to the municipality to repay the prepayment that was done by the municipality. Once they finish this payment, they are owners of their share in the energy community. They're an energy cooperative. They remain the cooperative. And the municipality can use this money again to fund another household that can integrate the scheme again. So it's a very... innovative way that's also mixed like social innovation with financial innovation because you need to create this make this rolling fund work but also have been working quite well even if sometimes you have problems in the middle like the energy price of the the cooperative fluctuate a bit more so now it's a bit more expensive than the other providers but i think it's also the challenge of doing innovation the context change you need to adapt your solution need to be agile so they The city and the cooperative now are looking to install plug-in PV systems in the balcony. So the households, they have also self-production of solar energy and then they can bridge the gap, the difference gaps of solution that they're going to be benefiting will be the least expensive in the market for them. So they're going to be paying even less than the social tariffs usually.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's very interesting. I don't know if we will have time to get into the other two. But the PowerPet site is packed with some really interesting, let's say, feedback on what happened and the various business model. It's really inspiring because it's extremely concrete, right? It's extremely like underground and very, you managed to build a team that was not afraid of saying certain things were extremely difficult. So I would like to... take a few minutes to reflect on the kind of lessons that you will take away from this power project, especially about, you said that certain projects had to withdraw from being pilots. So I would like to reflect on what it means actually for the energy sector and for you in particular.
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure. I think, except for me, and one lesson that I take back, it's also a bit more broader for every kind of innovation project. I think there is a very important point that you need to find a stakeholder that assumes the risk. In this kind of, there is always a risk. And it was a huge challenge for us. For example, there is, if we just go back to the example of Eco that I gave, there is a risk that the household will not pay the three euros that they are. expected to pay every month because they may have changed their situation, faced other vulnerabilities. And so if they don't pay, who assumes this risk? Probably the insurances are in place, they will not cover because they're very specific cases. And then there is a risk. And what we have been seeing that was the case that were more successful is usually a stakeholder that has of public interest, that covert risk. This risk is minor. Probably you can find solutions to cover this risk, but you need this political will, you need this political push to be able to cover this risk. So the local authorities, the municipalities, they are really important in Power Up to be able to cover this risk that a standard commercial actor will never cover. And the same thing when you talk about sustainability or anything that's transition-related. There are externalities and whenever you bring these, like the pollution, the impacts inside the economical systems, either they create costs or they create risks. So we need to deal with it and you need to really bring everyone around the table and discuss clearly, frontally, how we are going to address this risk. Can we assume it? Can we find mitigation solutions to this? and and It's possible, but we cannot hide that there is no risk and that nobody will take care of this. And then I think from a more broad and energy vulnerability perspective, all of the team learned a lot about how challenging it is to engage with the people in vulnerable situations that are facing vulnerabilities because they have other priorities. They sometimes have a mistrust in the system, in the public system. Sometimes I think it's also important to think that sometimes they don't speak the language that we speak. They can be migrants, they can have low literacy. You need to adapt yourself a lot. Communication and engagement has to be something that's not, I'm communicating now at the start. It's something that you start at the beginning and you end after the end. You should keep doing it all the time. Because also they need to be informed. continuously if there is changing the schemes i think this the engagement the communication being closed building trust building relationships really really important for this uh type of of project and initiatives i find it especially interesting that you mentioned this because when working on the project myself i found the example of um Ausha and in italy really do let's say the
Speaker #1
The most interesting and complex when it was really about the timing of the communication and the building trust, etc. So in a nutshell, in Campania, it's one of the poorest regions in Italy. It's close to Naples. The idea was to reuse some of the material and the lands that were already there. There was even a solar power plant that had never been plugged, right? But still, people didn't really show up when there was the kind of presentation of the project. And something equivalent happened in Chechnya, because not so equivalent. But yeah, the team out there decided to communicate where people exactly were and not like trying to reinvent the wheel. And they joined some festival and things like that to make sure that people were. hearing about the project. So I found it really interesting that, you know, they were facing the same kind of problem and they had to be very creative with the solutions.
Speaker #0
Yeah, definitely. I think those are good examples. We also face this challenge of sometimes you need to communicate, you need to engage, but yeah, you cannot use the single shot that you have. Like if your model is not stable enough, you cannot share something that's not very clear yet for them. So then you have to be creative in the way you engage. The engagement needs to take place. So in Czechia, for example, they really attended their day festival. They talked with households. They have been promoting also other energy poverty mitigation actions. Also in Valencia, they did a great work. So sometimes they were engaging with the households to talk about energy, but like distributing energy efficiency kits, doing energy audits, going to the households. Sometimes the engagement needs to take place, but not really to talk about the innovation part, to talk about the basics still. And then you build trust slowly up to the moment when you are ready to launch the model that you are going to test, the pilot, and then everyone is more or less prepared.
Speaker #1
It's very much about what the role of a city is in building trust, because trust is something very systemic. It's not like a one-shot communication campaign that will bring the trust, but it's more like the repetition that you build. over time by showing up, by being present. And that was really also interesting to see how much links there were between the different municipal services to reach out to the people as well. And that's exactly what you mentioned at the beginning, that the fact that whatever happens in cities has to be multidisciplinary and engage people with different viewpoints to find solutions that are...
Speaker #0
sustainable and that's uh that benefits people in the long run yeah sure i just one example came to my mind that's a metaphor completely out of my crazy brain i have the feeling that engagement and also all these pilot innovation projects is like doing broderie uh you do a stitch here you do a stitch there with it here with this there and you keep going and just at the end you're you're going to have the full picture and like your solution will look like something. But the smallest stitches you do, like the engagement that you do here, also not only engagement with the citizens, but also with the different stakeholders, with your social services, with the energy services, all these small connections, sometimes they take time. They take a little bit tired about it, but then you are going to see that it composes the full picture and that small contributions make it work.
Speaker #1
I love it. I really love it. Because I wanted to ask you if you had one lever. a rule, a funding condition or a mindset, or maybe a shift to make this kind of social energy players and this kind of actions and projects mainstream in Europe. But now you just said it, it would be like seeing it as embroidery.
Speaker #0
Yeah, see it as embroidery. Go slow, step by step, and don't give up because all the pilots, all this innovation, usually we are working in the gray zone. of regulations, moving sands, regulations changed. Like now our pilots regulations changed at least three times in the middle. Financial, economical conditions changed. We also had like COVID crisis, energy crisis in the middle. So you need to keep going also to be flexible. Like usually you have a plan and having a plan is good, but... destroying your plan and redoing your plan is also good you know so you need flexibility to do innovation to do yeah to integrate these these changes in in the in the green transition you need to have a plan but a flexible mindset to be able to to
Speaker #1
deal with everything that's changing violence changing so everything's changing all the time so yeah it's important quite important that's great thank you so much eduardo it's been uh so uh interesting and insightful and i will recommend our listeners and viewers to check the social energy players website so it's a power project but it's called social energy players because if they want to learn more about the various pilot projects i have worked on it the full disclaimer and it's been really super interesting like i've really loved talked talking with the various project managers like working with eduardo and there are so many lessons about... how to build trust, how to stay humble, but also take pride in collective work. And yeah, about this kind of extremely agile mindset that is not only for, let's say, the engineers planning some technical solutions, but it's also for people who innovate at the social level. So thank you, Eduardo. Would you like to add a couple of things about PowerApp or what it will become?
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure, sure. Thanks a lot, It was a really pleasure also to... collaborate with you in this process. So, yeah, Power Up is ending now in 15 days. It's our end, but it's not the end of our pilots. It's not the end of the work Energy Cities do on energy poverty as well. So take a look on all the materials that have been produced. The final brochure summarizes quite well what we have been doing. It's great. And also, if you want to know more, don't hesitate to reach out to the pilots themselves. They are the real heroes was up this history actually so to the different cities uh whenever you should want the context i can put you in context so uh just reach out and uh and see because It was the kickoff for them. It was they started five years starting something and now they're going to run these things that we work together by themselves. But yeah, I'm sure that they are very nice steps coming forward. And then on a more personal note, I think I discussed with you, but I have, I post this kind of crazy metaphors like the embroidery one, a sub stack channel that's called Modern Human City. So whenever if you... If people are interested in taking a look, don't hesitate to look on my social media for more crazed metaphors and broader and philosophical reflections.
Speaker #1
Yeah, but I will keep the embroidery one.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
It might become even the title of this episode. So thank you, Stavros and Pavel. Thank you. Have a great day.
Speaker #0
Thank you very much.
Speaker #2
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Energetic. It's been a pleasure diving deep into the world of sustainability and the just energy transition with some of the most forward-thinking mouths out there. I'm Maureen Cornelis, your host from Policy Consultancy, Next Energy Consumer, and it's been an incredible journey growing this podcast together with you, our knowledgeable and passionate listeners. Since 2021, we've shared countless stories, insights, and ideas over more than 40 episodes. And it's all thanks to your support and enthusiasm. If you enjoyed our journey so far and want to help us keep the conversation going, why not support us on Patreon? Every bit helps us bring more inspiring content your way. Check out the show notes for the link. And hey, if you're a part of an organization that shares our passion for a sustainable and inclusive energy future, we're excited to explore sponsorship opportunities with you. It's a fantastic way to connect with a dedicated audience and make an even bigger impact together. Shout out to the fantastic Igor Mikhailovich from Podcast Media Factory for his incredible sound design work, making every episode a joy to listen to. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Energetic on your favorite podcast platform. And if you think a friend or a colleague could benefit from our episode, we'd love for you to spread the word. It helps us grow and keep the energy transition conversation alive. Sharing is caring. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay engaged and updated on all things energetic. Thanks once again for lending your ears. Until next time.

Chapters

Introduction: The Fairness of Energy Transition
0sec
Meeting Dr. Eduardo Blanco: Background and Experience
1min
Understanding the Role of Cities in Energy Transition
3min
The Neighborhood Approach: A Social Perspective
6min
Diving into PowerUp: Addressing Energy Poverty
9min
Innovative Solutions from PowerUp Project
17min
Lessons Learned from the PowerUp Experience
24min
Building Trust and Engagement in Communities
28min
Conclusion: The Path Forward for Energy Justice
36min

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Energ’Ethic is a podcast exploring the human, institutional, and ethical dimensions of the energy transition.

Hosted by Marine Cornelis, Energ’Ethic brings together policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, city practitioners, researchers, and civil society voices to examine what makes energy transitions succeed—or fail—in the real world.

Beyond technology and targets, the podcast focuses on trust, power, consumer rights, digitalisation, and energy justice. Each conversation connects policy and market design with lived experience, unpacking how decisions taken in boardrooms and institutions translate into everyday realities for people and communities.

Energ’Ethic is not about slogans or quick fixes. It is a space for rigorous, grounded conversations about resilience, legitimacy, and the social conditions required for lasting climate and energy strategies.

Listen to Energ’Ethic to:

Hear first-hand perspectives from those shaping energy and climate policy from the inside
Understand how governance, regulation, and technology affect consumers and communities
Explore energy and climate justice through practical, experience-based insights

Energ’Ethic speaks to an engaged audience of decision-makers and practitioners working at the intersection of policy, markets, cities, and society.

Organisations can partner with Energ’Ethic to support high-quality dialogue and reach a thoughtful, policy-literate audience committed to a fair and resilient energy transition.

Listen, subscribe, and join the conversation.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Energ’Ethic is a podcast exploring the human, institutional, and ethical dimensions of the energy transition.

Listen to Energ’Ethic to:

Hear first-hand perspectives from those shaping energy and climate policy from the inside
Understand how governance, regulation, and technology affect consumers and communities
Explore energy and climate justice through practical, experience-based insights

Energ’Ethic speaks to an engaged audience of decision-makers and practitioners working at the intersection of policy, markets, cities, and society.

Organisations can partner with Energ’Ethic to support high-quality dialogue and reach a thoughtful, policy-literate audience committed to a fair and resilient energy transition.

Listen, subscribe, and join the conversation.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Cities are on the front line of the energy transition. They are also where energy poverty is most visible.

In this episode of Energ’Ethic, Marine Cornelis talks with Dr Eduardo Blanco from Energy Cities, coordinator of the POWER UP project.

The episode covers:

Social energy players and new local business models
Municipal leadership and public risk-taking
Neighbourhood-scale solutions
Concrete lessons from European pilot cities

Eduardo explains why building fair energy systems looks less like engineering and more like embroidery. Slow, precise and deeply human.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox

Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory

Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Speaker #0
I have the feeling that engagement and also all these pilot innovation projects is like doing embroidery. You do a stitch here, you do a stitch there, you do a stitch here, you do a stitch there, and you need to keep going. And just at the end, you're going to have the full picture and like your solution will look like something. But the smallest stitches you do, like the engagement that you do here, also not only engagement with the citizens, but also with the different stakeholders, with your social services, with the energy services. All these small connections, sometimes they take time, they take a little bit tired about it, but then you are going to see that it composes the full picture and that these small contributions make it work.
Speaker #1
The energy transition is happening, but is it fair? Is it working for people like you and me, or just for big market players? Welcome to Energetic. I am Marine Cornelis, an expert in energy and climate policies. and I bring you the voices shaping our energy future. Activists, scientists, policymakers, the real people making real change, often against the odds. Here, we do not settle for surface-level takes. We dig into the challenges, the solutions, and the lessons that do not always make the headlines. And in doing so, we rediscover something vital, our ability to trust in institutions, to believe in change, and to reclaim our power to act. Because if we want just resilience, if we want to just transition, we need to understand what it takes to make it happen. And more importantly, we need to believe that we can. Let's get into it. Today on Energetic, we travel to the places where cities learn, adapt, and sometimes surprise us. Our guest today is Dr. Eduardo Blanco, a project manager at Energy Cities. and the driving force behind the PowerUp project, which have been working with five European municipalities to rethink how communities support people in energy poverty. Eduardo has moved across disciplines and continents. He began his career in Brazil, working on urban development, waste system and environmental planning. He later pursued advanced studies in France, focusing on sustainable mobility, urban ecology and regenerative design. This experience shaped his belief that cities become fairer when technical solutions meet social needs. Eduardo is a doer by nature. He likes ideas that become useful objects and strategies that become practical support. So his work blends engineering, design and community engagement with quite a rare sense of care. So he managed projects on energy poverty, clean energy district and the role of social sciences in the Greenteel. This place him at the center of Europe's conversation on trust, vulnerability and local action. So in this episode, we explore how cities can build the right conditions for sufficiency and dignity. We will discuss social energy players, the everyday realities of households in energy poverty and hardship, and the lessons that travel from Brazil to Europe. Eduardo brings a fresh, practical and deeply human view on what an equitable transition should look like. Eduardo, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Thank you very much, Marine. It's a pleasure to be around.
Speaker #1
Thank you so much, Eduardo. So you've been describing yourself as a doer in a world that often gets stuck in theory. So where does this drive to materialize ideas come from, whether in cities or through your own projects at home?
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure. It's a very good question. I think a lot of this came from my experience working with cities, actually. Back in Brazil, when I started to work as like urban planning environmental engineer, lots of my work was on planning, exactly, doing paperwork, doing planning strategy, long-term planning. And I was very disappointed to see them staying there in the paper, in the drawer, and not really getting into action. I think plans are definitely needed and necessary to set the long-term strategy, but they need to be dynamic and they need to have also this dimension of testing, piloting, going to the ground and doing things and seeing what works, what does not work. So a lot came to this, and this was also what moved me to working on our pilot project as PowerApp that we're going to talk a bit later that has really concrete implementation on the ground. And then also, yeah, from a more personal perspective, my mom has always in her life doing handicraft. entire life. And then I think it also reflects on me. I really like to do things and to work with my hands and to create something. So like from visual arts to any kind that I can use my hands to do, I'm always doing it. I think this being at the world really reflects who I am, at least at this moment.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's great also, because I mean, at the end of the day, the cities are exactly where we are evolving as human beings. Like, there are a lot of... of things around us that at the end of the day, they shape us as well. So it influences our daily lives. And now we are not, of course, physically in the same space, but in a way, there's nothing more tangible than the city and its building and the fact that it's a composition of a lot of things that people have been doing and are doing every day. So that's a very nice, like, circling back.
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure, because actually it's a... It's a two-way thing because we change the space every day. Like, even if you don't think about it, we change the space continually. And the space changes as well. So how we perceive this space that we have been changing, it changes us. So it's very interesting. And I think also cities and changing the space, the way we use this space, is something that everyone can relate to. Everyone is, the majority today of the population, is an urban dealer. They live in the urban space. They have an argument. They have an opinion about it. the energy, about the mobility, about the public space. For me, it's a very topic that I really like and enjoy working with.
Speaker #1
And you have crossed many disciplines, right, in your job, in your studies as well. So you've done, you've worked on environmental engineering, on sustainable mobility, on urban ecology, on biomimicry. So it's a lot of doing, lots of things, a lot of very tangible sometimes a lot of observation and then bringing them back into something like to perspective and so on. So what unifies your way of looking at cities and their blind spots? What do you see when you see a city?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I see a complex system, actually. I think it's very, very particular. And sometimes when we work in like European projects, in projects in general, you see things very clustered. Like I'm working now on energy. I'm working now on mobility. I'm working now on nature and biodiversity. But everything is connected in a city. Impossible to, it's okay for the human mind and for our Cartesian way of doing and thinking. Sometimes we need to separate, but we can't forget that things are related. And I think this is, yeah, also what came across my experience in my work is really seeing things with all their synergies that they have and the trade-offs. Because if you do a mobility, project, to do a sustainable energy project, to put a PV in an area, in a green area. There is an impact in the nature, there is a trade-off, there is something that you need to think, there is going to impact the public space, it will impact the life of people. So everything is connected and sometimes we just narrow these clusters and we don't manage to, we don't have time also, or sometimes, to see these synergies and these links, but they are there and I think this is the magic side of of cities and the work with urban areas in general. But then also in my perspective, I think all this work is also quite like being a doctor, a health doctor. Because the same thing, you need to do a diagnostic first, you need to understand which is the condition of your patient, which are the problems, which are the strains, how their immune system is working, and then to do something, inform it by reality, It's informed by decision. by the real context that's there. And there is no one single answer. Every urban area, every city is unique as every patient. So really, I think this is also a very important point that I have been seeing in the work I'm doing up to now.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and that's interesting because it's not only each city that is unique, but also each neighborhood within the cities that, I mean, you can have... vast differences between a neighborhood and another. And so I've been working with the New European House Facility for a few months now. And there is this strong neighborhood approach that I find extremely interesting because, you know, in the energy field or in the housing fields until very recently, we were talking about the energy consumption of households, like the retrofitting of one building. and Now the European level understands that it's not really working. It has to be something that brings more socialization. And somehow the neighborhood is also a great place to do that. What is your understanding of the neighborhood's approach? And maybe you can kind of drive us into your difference of perspective. Because you come from Sao Paulo and it's very different from what you see also here in Europe, right?
Speaker #0
Yeah, definitely. I really like the neighborhood scale. All my PhD was around this, around neighborhood transition, neighborhood level. I think that, yeah, the neighborhoods, I think it's a good challenge for us now. We know now how to manage buildings, how to make buildings sustainable, regenerative, net zero and everything. But the neighborhood, it helps us to bridge a bit the scale, to go to a scale that enlarges. the impact and also it's easier to integrate all the social dimensions and economic dimensions because The definitions of neighborhood varies. Like you can have any kind of definitions. But for me, it's an area that also has a very specific social dynamics. The social fabric is working in a specific way. So it's not only geographical, but it's also social. It has also the cultural dimension, the historical dimension of the neighborhood. So, yeah, the neighborhood brings this perspective that also I work with a lot with nature-based solutions, biodiversity. so it's a scale that's more relevant for this innovation on biodiversity, because biodiversity, a single tree will not help much, even if it helps, but the structural change is much more interesting, and then you catalyze effects that are more tangible. So I think that this direction that European Bauhaus is going through neighborhoods is very interesting. And then, yeah. The reality of neighborhoods in Brazil and Europe is very, very, very different. Not only the neighborhoods, but the social reality as well. I think scale, from perspective scale, like the size are very different. Usually neighborhoods in Brazil, they are big. Even sometimes they are more homogeneous. You have like more distinction between areas that are more residential, more industrial, more commercial. But the size is huge and the dynamics on thinking about public transportation. Yeah, economy. It's very, very different because we have also lots of informal economy still taking place in this place. So, yeah, it's changed completely the shape. So that's also why I think you need really to understand the reality of the neighborhood, to be able to propose something there that works for the people living there.
Speaker #1
That's really so interesting. And that makes me think of this kind of 15-minute city. It used to be like very trendy a couple of years ago. I don't know if it's as trendy now. better. This kind of whatever you can do within 15 to 20 minutes, walking, cycling, etc. That becomes your reality, right? It's a very interesting approach, especially when you take the time to live your city, right? It might be different when you are always rushing and looking after time and running from places to places. but whenever you can feel... And experience your city, what you explore first is usually your own neighborhood and that makes it relatable and you see and you witness the change. So as a human being, it becomes really what shapes your daily experience, right? What you just mentioned about nature-based solution and biodiversity, etc. I find it extremely interesting when we talk about climate adaptation. And the fact that climate change is heating cities way more than it is heating the countryside. The difference of temperature can be 7 to 10 degrees between cities and the countryside. So having a neighborhood approach to buildings, to planting trees, to the construction of bicycle paths, etc. is also very relevant. And the parks, for instance, are something... usually people take a lot of pride of and they are profoundly in their neighborhoods like our community park almost like But i'm talking from a western european perspective. Is it something that you have analyzed in other contexts in europe?
Speaker #0
Yeah Oh, I think the the 15 minute city the amazing concept but also at the same time that I think it's great I think it's very uh european centered now. Uh, it works for europe but then yeah, I think this all these topics apply it can be applied everywhere but the challenge is where we are starting from it's very different from one area to another i think in europe in general today we are more or less homogeneous on this but then when you go to south america or even with when you go to other european countries territories not countries like french kuyana or rio nunez island that are french uh lands that are not in the european continent the reality is also quite different You should think, yeah, you should think, for example, even where I come from in Brazil, to walk 15 minutes from my house, we are going to be in the middle of houses and that's it. We're still going to be in the same area. There's nothing to do besides going to the house of someone else. So it needs to require a more structural change in the way of planning, the way of doing, promoting the diversity of the space. So, yeah, I think the concept is great, but the challenge, where do we are starting to reach this target? changes a lot from one country to another and also from one smaller city to one bigger city for example paris is great in the diversity of spaces of uses of like being able to do things within within the closest of your home like having green spaces having services having public administration but when now i live in lila The situation is different. I don't have a green space 15 minutes from my place walking. I have to take my bike. 15 minutes. Okay, still 15 minutes, but it requires a bit more effort. So different sides of city, different types of resources, challenges where we are starting. The starting point is definitely different. And I think it also applies to energy poverty, energy transition, energy poverty.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's a very nice loop. And I love that you live in Lille. That's where I studied. And I saw the transformation at the beginning of the year 2000. And I haven't had the opportunity to come back in years, but I would love to see how it has evolved because there were a lot of actions being undertaken. I moved there when Lille became European Capital of Culture. And that was quite an interesting experiment for the city to reinvent itself. So I think that's also worth mentioning that there are really some cool initiatives. At European level, that really brings some new and fresh air into city planning. I think it's also something that we may tend to forget that, you know, this kind of people gathering to help change things. That's very, very inspiring. So that's also exactly what you've been doing with the project Power Up that we just mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. So it's a project. where you have been working with five pilot cities to test some models to help people in energy poverty. You've been developing social energy players, so different forms of energy enablers. So can you tell us more about PowerUp and what came out of it? Yeah,
Speaker #0
so I think the introduction is great. I think just to summarize what PowerUp is, The idea of the project was really to bring this social dimension to everything that's energy business today. So today, when you produce energy the standard way, you are an energy producer, you have the distributor. So you are just giving us services and people can subscribe to your service and get energy from you. And then we just forget that thousands and thousands of people today in Europe, they're not able to really use the energy that they need to meet their energy needs. So they are They need to reduce their consumption because they can't pay. So they're going to heat less their homes or to cool less their homes during summer as well, or to limit their appliances used at their place for cooking, for lighting. And this impacts the life and health of people in a very strong way. These people are not you and me and probably not the people listening to the podcast, maybe, yes, but they are a specific... Bye. types of people that are facing these vulnerabilities. This population, they change over time. And so, yeah, so we need different types of easiness and strategies to bring this population that's facing vulnerabilities to the energy transition. Today, Europe's trying to do an energy transition, but this energy transition is not happening for everyone. So myself, I can pay an energy provider that's doing sustainable energy, that's like energy Cooperative that's producing energy locally. But these people that are facing an energy vulnerability, they actually don't manage to use the energy they need. So thinking about using a sustainable energy provider, shifting for renewables, it's not on their priority. It's not on their list, not on their minds. So a lot of power up mindset was how to design a business that make it possible, that provides equity, provide everything that these vulnerable people need. to be able to take part in the transition. Like taking part in the transition should not be a burden for them. So it should be natural. It should be, okay, it's just there, a choice. I can jump in the transition as well. So this was a lot what we were trying with these different cities across Europe with different models and schemes to see how we can do this, how it could work, how it could be tailored to each locality and how it could also take shape. in a concrete example.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and the cities had different starting points and they were located in different EU countries. So essentially the idea was to make the energy transition, like using energy locally produced and something as evident as going to, let's say, the local shop. or the local school. So something like the natural choice for people, right? And these places where, please correct me if I'm mistaken, but the one place in Belgium, one in Ausha.
Speaker #0
In Ausha, yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, there was also one in Spain, in Valencia, and the other two, you know, you have to tell them. Plus, there were also two that were learning from it.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so as you said, we had one in Belgium, that's Ziclo, one in Czechia, that's Rosnoff, one in Spain, that's Valencia. Then we had Italy, the southern area of Italy, in the Campania area. and then we had, yeah, it was Naples and then we had one in... Netherlands in Ireland that didn't work and finally the project then became an observer. And we had another one that it was in North Macedonia. At the start of the project, we also had tried to do a pilot there in Iscopia, the capital of North Macedonia. It also didn't work at all and became an observer, a replicator. So Netherlands and North Macedonia are more replicators, observers than pilots. Then we had real power pilots that went over the full way and the arrive at Judail with something on the ground.
Speaker #1
Yeah, and they did vastly different projects. I found what your colleagues did in Valencia absolutely impressive, not only because of the scale, but because of what they managed to implement, right? They used some of the most, let's say, collective and personal space. of the city to then benefit more people. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's amazing. I can give a bit more of an example. I think it links a lot with what we were talking about synergies before. So it's really existing infrastructure that's there, not being used. Like, it's being used. So to break the mystery, they installed PVs in cemeteries. So they had a very specific structure of cemeteries with some buildings where you put the ashes and the remains of... of people that left us and these buildings they have a roof that's free it's not being used and the sun is hitting there all the time every day in valencia it's very sunny so the potential was high so the municipality decided to install pvs in these roofs and to use this the energy produced to cover the need some part of the energy needs of the municipality of municipal buildings but uh one share specific share of this energy is going directly to people in facing energy vulnerabilities so they don't need to pay their energy bill anymore that they need to apply to receive these uh but much more structural than giving only an energy check or a voucher for paying the energy something that's a punctual ad they enter in the system they enter in a support system that they they're going to benefit for the... the longer that they need to be to receive this support and it's easier as possible for them so the social like the the social services work hands-to-hands to the energy services of the municipality to be able to identify the households that are in need to recruit them to explain them how it will uh work to build the trust that's needed as well uh and to bring them in as easiest as possible for them and once they are in they are just benefiting from
Speaker #1
renewable energy from an asset that was there uh that was there waiting for uh for a better use yeah that's that's really amazing because they are that's like the municipality really had to convince the family to to do this kind of work because it's it's like of course it's the most personal and the most uh you have to do it with so much so much respect but they they managed to do it and I really find it inspiring. You don't need like to to cover lands. You don't need to change anything, make anything complicated. You don't need to displace people or their remains. Of course, you make the most of what is already there. And that is exactly what sustainability should be about. The other projects were a little different, but also very successful. Let's move on to, I don't know, Northern Europe. Let's go to Belgium.
Speaker #0
Yeah, so Belgium was a very particular case because we were working in Niclo, that's a city in the Flemish area of Belgium. And the city they had already for a while been engaged in the renewable transition. And they had bought shares of a wind turbine from an energy cooperative, from EcoPower. And the municipality has been engaged in interesting about like how to tackle energy poverty in a more structural and systemic way than like just with support, punctual support. support for the households. And then their scheme was to create... a rolling fund to be able to the households to join the energy cooperative that was producing energy with this wind turbine, benefit from the energy without having to pay in advance. Because to enter an energy cooperative and benefit from their tariffs and from the green energy production, there is an energy fee. If I'm not wrong, for EcoPower it was 250 euros. Yeah,
Speaker #1
it can be very high for certain people.
Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. for like, I always like to remind that it's not me and you. Sometimes I give conferences and people say, ah, yeah, it's €250, I can pay. But yeah, it's not me and you. So then what happens is that the municipality, as they have shares of this wind turbine, they allocate the share that they have to this household. This household, they start to benefit from the energy from the energy cooperative and they pay, they repay this prepayment the municipality made for them every month. over a long period. So they pay three euros per month. That's integrated in their energy bill. Three euros per month goes back to the municipality to repay the prepayment that was done by the municipality. Once they finish this payment, they are owners of their share in the energy community. They're an energy cooperative. They remain the cooperative. And the municipality can use this money again to fund another household that can integrate the scheme again. So it's a very... innovative way that's also mixed like social innovation with financial innovation because you need to create this make this rolling fund work but also have been working quite well even if sometimes you have problems in the middle like the energy price of the the cooperative fluctuate a bit more so now it's a bit more expensive than the other providers but i think it's also the challenge of doing innovation the context change you need to adapt your solution need to be agile so they The city and the cooperative now are looking to install plug-in PV systems in the balcony. So the households, they have also self-production of solar energy and then they can bridge the gap, the difference gaps of solution that they're going to be benefiting will be the least expensive in the market for them. So they're going to be paying even less than the social tariffs usually.
Speaker #1
Yeah, that's very interesting. I don't know if we will have time to get into the other two. But the PowerPet site is packed with some really interesting, let's say, feedback on what happened and the various business model. It's really inspiring because it's extremely concrete, right? It's extremely like underground and very, you managed to build a team that was not afraid of saying certain things were extremely difficult. So I would like to... take a few minutes to reflect on the kind of lessons that you will take away from this power project, especially about, you said that certain projects had to withdraw from being pilots. So I would like to reflect on what it means actually for the energy sector and for you in particular.
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure. I think, except for me, and one lesson that I take back, it's also a bit more broader for every kind of innovation project. I think there is a very important point that you need to find a stakeholder that assumes the risk. In this kind of, there is always a risk. And it was a huge challenge for us. For example, there is, if we just go back to the example of Eco that I gave, there is a risk that the household will not pay the three euros that they are. expected to pay every month because they may have changed their situation, faced other vulnerabilities. And so if they don't pay, who assumes this risk? Probably the insurances are in place, they will not cover because they're very specific cases. And then there is a risk. And what we have been seeing that was the case that were more successful is usually a stakeholder that has of public interest, that covert risk. This risk is minor. Probably you can find solutions to cover this risk, but you need this political will, you need this political push to be able to cover this risk. So the local authorities, the municipalities, they are really important in Power Up to be able to cover this risk that a standard commercial actor will never cover. And the same thing when you talk about sustainability or anything that's transition-related. There are externalities and whenever you bring these, like the pollution, the impacts inside the economical systems, either they create costs or they create risks. So we need to deal with it and you need to really bring everyone around the table and discuss clearly, frontally, how we are going to address this risk. Can we assume it? Can we find mitigation solutions to this? and and It's possible, but we cannot hide that there is no risk and that nobody will take care of this. And then I think from a more broad and energy vulnerability perspective, all of the team learned a lot about how challenging it is to engage with the people in vulnerable situations that are facing vulnerabilities because they have other priorities. They sometimes have a mistrust in the system, in the public system. Sometimes I think it's also important to think that sometimes they don't speak the language that we speak. They can be migrants, they can have low literacy. You need to adapt yourself a lot. Communication and engagement has to be something that's not, I'm communicating now at the start. It's something that you start at the beginning and you end after the end. You should keep doing it all the time. Because also they need to be informed. continuously if there is changing the schemes i think this the engagement the communication being closed building trust building relationships really really important for this uh type of of project and initiatives i find it especially interesting that you mentioned this because when working on the project myself i found the example of um Ausha and in italy really do let's say the
Speaker #1
The most interesting and complex when it was really about the timing of the communication and the building trust, etc. So in a nutshell, in Campania, it's one of the poorest regions in Italy. It's close to Naples. The idea was to reuse some of the material and the lands that were already there. There was even a solar power plant that had never been plugged, right? But still, people didn't really show up when there was the kind of presentation of the project. And something equivalent happened in Chechnya, because not so equivalent. But yeah, the team out there decided to communicate where people exactly were and not like trying to reinvent the wheel. And they joined some festival and things like that to make sure that people were. hearing about the project. So I found it really interesting that, you know, they were facing the same kind of problem and they had to be very creative with the solutions.
Speaker #0
Yeah, definitely. I think those are good examples. We also face this challenge of sometimes you need to communicate, you need to engage, but yeah, you cannot use the single shot that you have. Like if your model is not stable enough, you cannot share something that's not very clear yet for them. So then you have to be creative in the way you engage. The engagement needs to take place. So in Czechia, for example, they really attended their day festival. They talked with households. They have been promoting also other energy poverty mitigation actions. Also in Valencia, they did a great work. So sometimes they were engaging with the households to talk about energy, but like distributing energy efficiency kits, doing energy audits, going to the households. Sometimes the engagement needs to take place, but not really to talk about the innovation part, to talk about the basics still. And then you build trust slowly up to the moment when you are ready to launch the model that you are going to test, the pilot, and then everyone is more or less prepared.
Speaker #1
It's very much about what the role of a city is in building trust, because trust is something very systemic. It's not like a one-shot communication campaign that will bring the trust, but it's more like the repetition that you build. over time by showing up, by being present. And that was really also interesting to see how much links there were between the different municipal services to reach out to the people as well. And that's exactly what you mentioned at the beginning, that the fact that whatever happens in cities has to be multidisciplinary and engage people with different viewpoints to find solutions that are...
Speaker #0
sustainable and that's uh that benefits people in the long run yeah sure i just one example came to my mind that's a metaphor completely out of my crazy brain i have the feeling that engagement and also all these pilot innovation projects is like doing broderie uh you do a stitch here you do a stitch there with it here with this there and you keep going and just at the end you're you're going to have the full picture and like your solution will look like something. But the smallest stitches you do, like the engagement that you do here, also not only engagement with the citizens, but also with the different stakeholders, with your social services, with the energy services, all these small connections, sometimes they take time. They take a little bit tired about it, but then you are going to see that it composes the full picture and that small contributions make it work.
Speaker #1
I love it. I really love it. Because I wanted to ask you if you had one lever. a rule, a funding condition or a mindset, or maybe a shift to make this kind of social energy players and this kind of actions and projects mainstream in Europe. But now you just said it, it would be like seeing it as embroidery.
Speaker #0
Yeah, see it as embroidery. Go slow, step by step, and don't give up because all the pilots, all this innovation, usually we are working in the gray zone. of regulations, moving sands, regulations changed. Like now our pilots regulations changed at least three times in the middle. Financial, economical conditions changed. We also had like COVID crisis, energy crisis in the middle. So you need to keep going also to be flexible. Like usually you have a plan and having a plan is good, but... destroying your plan and redoing your plan is also good you know so you need flexibility to do innovation to do yeah to integrate these these changes in in the in the green transition you need to have a plan but a flexible mindset to be able to to
Speaker #1
deal with everything that's changing violence changing so everything's changing all the time so yeah it's important quite important that's great thank you so much eduardo it's been uh so uh interesting and insightful and i will recommend our listeners and viewers to check the social energy players website so it's a power project but it's called social energy players because if they want to learn more about the various pilot projects i have worked on it the full disclaimer and it's been really super interesting like i've really loved talked talking with the various project managers like working with eduardo and there are so many lessons about... how to build trust, how to stay humble, but also take pride in collective work. And yeah, about this kind of extremely agile mindset that is not only for, let's say, the engineers planning some technical solutions, but it's also for people who innovate at the social level. So thank you, Eduardo. Would you like to add a couple of things about PowerApp or what it will become?
Speaker #0
Yeah, sure, sure. Thanks a lot, It was a really pleasure also to... collaborate with you in this process. So, yeah, Power Up is ending now in 15 days. It's our end, but it's not the end of our pilots. It's not the end of the work Energy Cities do on energy poverty as well. So take a look on all the materials that have been produced. The final brochure summarizes quite well what we have been doing. It's great. And also, if you want to know more, don't hesitate to reach out to the pilots themselves. They are the real heroes was up this history actually so to the different cities uh whenever you should want the context i can put you in context so uh just reach out and uh and see because It was the kickoff for them. It was they started five years starting something and now they're going to run these things that we work together by themselves. But yeah, I'm sure that they are very nice steps coming forward. And then on a more personal note, I think I discussed with you, but I have, I post this kind of crazy metaphors like the embroidery one, a sub stack channel that's called Modern Human City. So whenever if you... If people are interested in taking a look, don't hesitate to look on my social media for more crazed metaphors and broader and philosophical reflections.
Speaker #1
Yeah, but I will keep the embroidery one.
Speaker #0
Yeah.
Speaker #1
It might become even the title of this episode. So thank you, Stavros and Pavel. Thank you. Have a great day.
Speaker #0
Thank you very much.
Speaker #2
Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Energetic. It's been a pleasure diving deep into the world of sustainability and the just energy transition with some of the most forward-thinking mouths out there. I'm Maureen Cornelis, your host from Policy Consultancy, Next Energy Consumer, and it's been an incredible journey growing this podcast together with you, our knowledgeable and passionate listeners. Since 2021, we've shared countless stories, insights, and ideas over more than 40 episodes. And it's all thanks to your support and enthusiasm. If you enjoyed our journey so far and want to help us keep the conversation going, why not support us on Patreon? Every bit helps us bring more inspiring content your way. Check out the show notes for the link. And hey, if you're a part of an organization that shares our passion for a sustainable and inclusive energy future, we're excited to explore sponsorship opportunities with you. It's a fantastic way to connect with a dedicated audience and make an even bigger impact together. Shout out to the fantastic Igor Mikhailovich from Podcast Media Factory for his incredible sound design work, making every episode a joy to listen to. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Energetic on your favorite podcast platform. And if you think a friend or a colleague could benefit from our episode, we'd love for you to spread the word. It helps us grow and keep the energy transition conversation alive. Sharing is caring. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to stay engaged and updated on all things energetic. Thanks once again for lending your ears. Until next time.

Chapters

Introduction: The Fairness of Energy Transition
0sec
Meeting Dr. Eduardo Blanco: Background and Experience
1min
Understanding the Role of Cities in Energy Transition
3min
The Neighborhood Approach: A Social Perspective
6min
Diving into PowerUp: Addressing Energy Poverty
9min
Innovative Solutions from PowerUp Project
17min
Lessons Learned from the PowerUp Experience
24min
Building Trust and Engagement in Communities
28min
Conclusion: The Path Forward for Energy Justice
36min

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Energ’Ethic is a podcast exploring the human, institutional, and ethical dimensions of the energy transition.

Listen to Energ’Ethic to:

Hear first-hand perspectives from those shaping energy and climate policy from the inside
Understand how governance, regulation, and technology affect consumers and communities
Explore energy and climate justice through practical, experience-based insights

Energ’Ethic speaks to an engaged audience of decision-makers and practitioners working at the intersection of policy, markets, cities, and society.

Organisations can partner with Energ’Ethic to support high-quality dialogue and reach a thoughtful, policy-literate audience committed to a fair and resilient energy transition.

Listen, subscribe, and join the conversation.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Energ’Ethic is a podcast exploring the human, institutional, and ethical dimensions of the energy transition.

Listen to Energ’Ethic to:

Hear first-hand perspectives from those shaping energy and climate policy from the inside
Understand how governance, regulation, and technology affect consumers and communities
Explore energy and climate justice through practical, experience-based insights

Energ’Ethic speaks to an engaged audience of decision-makers and practitioners working at the intersection of policy, markets, cities, and society.

Organisations can partner with Energ’Ethic to support high-quality dialogue and reach a thoughtful, policy-literate audience committed to a fair and resilient energy transition.

Listen, subscribe, and join the conversation.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Embed

Introduction: The Fairness of Energy Transition

0sec

Meeting Dr. Eduardo Blanco: Background and Experience

1min

Understanding the Role of Cities in Energy Transition

3min

The Neighborhood Approach: A Social Perspective

6min

Diving into PowerUp: Addressing Energy Poverty

9min

Innovative Solutions from PowerUp Project

17min

Lessons Learned from the PowerUp Experience

24min

Building Trust and Engagement in Communities

28min

Conclusion: The Path Forward for Energy Justice

36min

Chapters

Introduction: The Fairness of Energy Transition

0sec

Meeting Dr. Eduardo Blanco: Background and Experience

1min

Understanding the Role of Cities in Energy Transition

3min

The Neighborhood Approach: A Social Perspective

6min

Diving into PowerUp: Addressing Energy Poverty

9min

Innovative Solutions from PowerUp Project

17min

Lessons Learned from the PowerUp Experience

24min

Building Trust and Engagement in Communities

28min

Conclusion: The Path Forward for Energy Justice

36min