The European Solar Days successfully promote the use of a free unlimited renewable energy source available everywhere to everyone to generate electricity as well as heating and cooling: the sun. The organisation of annual "Solar Day" events at a national level aims to raise public awareness of intelligent energy solutions and behaviours, particularly in the solar thermal and solar photovoltaics segments.
During the fourth edition, which was held from 1-15 May 2011, increasing support for solar energy was demonstrated with more than 8,000 events organised in 19 countries throughout Europe, attracting the participation of half a million citizens.
The European Solar Days Annual Conference is the main forum for representatives of network countries to assess the campaign results. It is also an opportunity to exchange views on how to enlarge the network and fire the enthusiasm of event organisers and participants alike. 20 participants from 16 countries gathered last week in Prague for the second edition of the European Solar Days Annual Conference to plan next year’s events.
“The European Solar Days face today a great challenge, as participants and event organisers increase their expectations and demand more from the organisations in charge of the European Solar Days campaign”, says Riccardo Battisti, coordinator of the European Solar Days in Italy since the first edition in 2008 and responsible for the implementation of the 2012 campaign.
Representatives from Sweden and Ukraine also attended the conference as guests, since these countries will also be organizing Solar Days events in 2012 and have already done so in the past.
“The European Solar Days are based on the engagement of individuals, citizens, organisations, companies and public institutions all around Europe. They join efforts to promote solar energy to their fellow European citizens. This is a proven formula, which can be replicated and adopted in different countries.” says, Pedro Dias, coordinator of the European Solar Days.
Building on the existing network and past experience, the number of event, participants as well as network countries taking part the European Solar Days are expected to continue to grow.
The European Solar Days campaign was originally launched in 2002 in Austria with the “Day of the Sun”. Positive feedback encouraged organisers to develop the event further into an annual pan-European campaign running over a couple of weeks. The 4th edition of this Europe-wide campaign was organised by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) together with the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) and a network of some 25 affiliated organisations, including NGOs, businesses and local governments. The European Solar Days’ project is supported by the Intelligent Energy Europe programme of the European Commission.
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