Smart Siting: Unlocking Europe's Solar and Wind Potential

Tuesday, 24 September | 15:00 - 16:15 CET

On 24 September, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) will unveil their new study showing the availability of community and biodiversity friendly land in Europe for achieving renewable energy targets.

The revised Renewable Energy Directive mandates European countries to conduct national renewable energy spatial mapping within a year. By February 2026, they must designate Renewable Acceleration Areas.

TNC's new study "Land use and Europe’s renewable energy transition: identifying low-conflict areas for wind and solar development" reveals that Europe has enough low-conflict land to achieve 45% of renewables by 2030. However, achieving this goal requires conscious adoption of smart siting practices as an imperative in the implementation.

The launch event will bring together energy, biodiversity and social science experts. They will discuss how smart siting measures can accelerate sustainable and equitable renewable energy deployment, to achieve the required speed and scale of energy transition to tackle climate change.

Moderator: Dave Keating

Agenda:

Introduction of the Study

Joseph Kiesecker, Lead Scientist for The Nature Conservancy's Conservation Lands Team
Kasandra Zorica Dropuljić, Southeast Europe Renewable Energy Project Manager, The Nature Conservancy Europe

Panel discussion

Elif Gündüzyeli, Renewable Energy Program lead at The Nature Conservancy Europe
Chris Rosslowe, Senior Energy & Climate Data Analyst, Ember
Cosimo Tansini, Senior Policy Officer for Renewable Energy, European Environmental Bureau
Andreas Uihlein, Project Leader, Energy and Industry Geography Lab, Joint Research Center, European Commission
Siddharth Sareen, Professor at the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation at the University of Bergen, and the Incoming Research Professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Oslo
Ariel Brunner, Regional Director, BirdLife Europe & Central Asia

Q&A session

This Virtual Conference is organised by The Nature Conservancy with Euractiv as a Media Partner.

Find out more.