• Home
  • About
    • Governance & Structure
    • The AER Executive Board
    • The AER Secretariat
    • Statute & Strategies
      • AER Statute
      • AER Procedures
    • AER stands with Ukraine
    • The History of AER
  • Members
    • Who are AER’s members?
    • Member Directory
    • Join AER!
  • Mutual Learning
    • About Mutual Learning
    • The Knowledge Transfer Forum
    • Working Groups
      • Ongoing Working Groups
      • Past Working Groups
  • Advocacy
    • About Our Advocacy Work
    • The Bureau
    • The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
    • AER Political Priorities 2020-2025
    • Intercultural Regions Network
  • Projects
    • About Our Projects
    • Ongoing Projects
    • Look for Partners
    • Completed Projects
  • AER Programmes
    • AER Eurodyssey
    • AER SUMMER ACADEMY
    • AER Youth Regional Network (YRN)
    • AER Observatory on Regionalisation
  • Events
    • AER events
    • Other events

Assembly of European Regions

Connecting regions, inspiring Europe since 1985

You are here: Home / Structure / Committees / Committee 1 / Energy transition: rural areas & the smart revolution

Energy transition: rural areas & the smart revolution

23 November, 2015 By Johanna Pacevicius

Facebooktwitterlinkedinmail
Share this!

Rurality and regional development: Unlocking our territories' economic and social potential Melville Kendal, Chairman of the AER working group on energy and climate change was in Barcelona on 18 November on the occasion of the Smart City Expo World Congress to present the AER report “Rurality and regional development: Unlocking our territories’ economic and social potential”. The event, which gathers thousands of participants each year, featured an experts panel debate on balancing the bidirectional urban-rural flow of resources, materials, products and services, inviting rural areas to join the smart revolution.

The AER report, which underlines the importance of including the rural world in growth strategies, adresses 4 main topics:
1. Healthcare services: how can we maintain them and make them more accessible?
2. Digital attractiveness: how can we develop infrastructures and usages?
3. Energy transition: what are the perspectives for diversifying the rural economy?
4. Demographic revival: what are the policies for welcoming populations and project leaders?

In the framework of this debate organized by Rural Smart Grids, Melville Kendal focused more specifically on the topic of the energy transition and the role of rural areas in diversifying the rural economy. Rural areas account for nearly 60% of the population of the 27 European Union State members and cover 90% of the European territory. While they still often adopt a traditional process of using polluting energy sources such as carbon and oil fuel, they have high renewable energy potential compared with urban areas. In terms of heating, as housing is often older and widely dispersed, it tends to be less energy efficient, and more expensive. Improving it represents as well a tremendous local source of job creation to be exploited. This report was drafted in 2013 by 10 regions and gathers a series of good practices on each of the topics addressed. It is available for download on the AER website.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Follow AER!
Facebooktwitterlinkedinrss

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Agriculture, Climate change, Economy, Energy, Good practices, Growth, Health, Healthcare, Regional development, Spatial planning

← Public opinion about the EU in the European regions Highlight the most deserving MEPs →

More articles on this topic

Why Innovative Skills are the Catalyst for Rural Areas
Committee 1 Annual Report June 2019 – November 2020
Committee 1 progress Report Spring 2020
Committee 2 Annual Report June 2019 – November 2020
Territorial approaches: the governance of Abruzzo for rural areas

AER. Connecting regions, inspiring Europe since 1985.

Follow our newsletter!




View previous campaigns.


  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Tweets by @europeanregions

AER Projects

  • Ongoing projects
    • EU-BELONG: An Intercultural Approach to Migrant Integration in Europe’s Regions
    • Includ-EU: Regional and local expertise, exchange and engagement for enhanced social cohesion in Europe
  • Partner search
  • Completed projects
    • SCIROCCO Exchange project
    • SKILLNET – Sector Skills Network of VET centres in Advanced Manufacturing: a coalition of transnational VET providers
    • CUBES – Cultural Administration Boosting with the Engagement of Sustainability for Local Communities
    • Y-FED: Europe is what we make of it
    • AMiD – Access to Services for Migrants with Disabilities
    • AER Summer Academy 2016
    • Alcohol Prevention Peer Reviews
    • ECREIN+
    • Engaged
    • Joint Efforts to Combat Dropout (JET-CD)
    • Let’s REUnite! Together for cohesion project
    • MOCHA
    • MORE4NRG
    • PRESERVE
    • PYE – Promoting Youth Employment
    • PRO-I3T
    • REALM – Regional Adult Learning Multipliers and the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiatives
    • Regions4GreenGrowth
    • Road to the Future
    • SEED European Silver Economy Awards
    • Smart Care
    • Smart Europe
    • YES – Youth Entrepreneurship Strategies

Library

Statutory Documents
AER Strategies
Minutes
Media Kit
Activity Reports
Newsletters
European Regions Map

Join AER!

Become a Member

Job Opportunities

Sign up for our Newsletter

Website map

Brussels · Strasbourg · Alba Iulia

A Network, a Partner and a Voice of European regions, since 1985 · Copyright © 2023 · Assembly of European Regions · [email protected] · Log in