Author(s)

F Wouters & S Gajewski

Abstract

To achieve national and international climate saving goals, municipalities play an important part with their regional programs and the realisation of concrete measures, The municipal playing field is characterised by short communication channels between the citizens and their government and is therefore a suitable location for climate saving programmes. The municipality can directly approach various relevant actors and act as an initiator itself. The International Energy Agency has started with its new Task, Solar City’ an initiative for municipalities, in which concrete climate saving goals are being pursued by synergetic actions, the application of renewable energies, rational use of energy, energy conservation, industrial innovation and better quality of living. The IEA Solar City Program aims at integrating various initiatives world-wide, that aim at sustainability of cities in the field of building, living and working. The IEA Solar City Program will co-ordinate and disseminate these activities and will create an international network of Experts and expertise. The City of Gelsenkirchen, a city with some 240,000 inhabitants lies in the heart of Northrhine- Westfalia (NRW), the most densely populated and most energy intensive German state. With the gradual demise of the traditional coal mining sector, the last decades have stretched the City of Gelsenkirchens flexibility to the edge. As a proactive step towards a sustainable future, Gelsenkirchen has chosen solar energy as the key technology for the structural change boosting the local economy. The old nickname - City of Thousand Fires -a reference to its steel history, is to be replaced by -City of Thousand Suns -. The first significant step towards structural change was taken by building the Science Park with a 210 kWp Photovoltaic system, housing several companies involved in R&D and engineering of solar energy technologies. Further significant steps were the most modem crystalline solar cell factory by Shell Solar Energy, which started production in 1999, the expansion of Flabegs (former Pilkington) activities, the opening of an FhG-ISE branch specialised on

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