Renewable energy crowdfunding involves three different parties: the fundraising platform, the investors  who generally expect a return, and project developers needing money. They may come from different nations .

In 2016, the Polish parliament, where the conservative Law and Justice party has an outright majority, voted one of the most severe anti-wind energy bills in Europe .

Do young people know what a smart city is? Do they care about saving energy and preserving the Earth’s resources? “Rooting sustainability starts on the benches of schools,” affirmed UNESCO director-general Irina Bokova at the recent UN Climate Change Conference ( COP22 ) in Marrakech, Morocco.

Across Europe, town and city councils are becoming increasingly interested in energy decentralisation , i.e. in producing power closer to where it is consumed.

Today the challenge is to enable better transmission from one country to another while reducing CO 2 with efficient links between renewable energy and the grid.

Part of the issue with small-scale, home-based renewable energy systems is that initial setup costs can be high. This puts such installations out of reach for some sectors of society, even if they could benefit financial in the long run with lower household bills.

Italy is famous all over the world for its historical cities, but their beauty is not enough anymore. They want to be smart. Two of the experimental forerunners developing energy efficiency measures are Udine and Salerno .

After the Brexit shock in Europe, an intensive debate has started to figure out the future energy strategy of the European Union without the UK.

Suburbs are often spaces of poverty, unemployment and urban decay. But now many peripheral areas are becoming laboratories of innovation , hosting initiatives for a sustainable future.

There are three ways a crowdfunding project can be financed. Lending: the entrepreneurs borrow money and pay interest; equity: investors in the project become its shareholders; donations: no reward is to be expected (there is a fourth way, a mix of equity and lending called “hybrid”).

Recent studies suggest that around 70 to 80 percent of people in Europe support wind farms, although there are still concerns around noise and aesthetics.

When you see a beautiful shirt on a fashion model or in a shop window, you ask yourself: shall I buy it? Can I afford it? But before deciding, there is another question to be answered : How much damage ...

United Kingdom - London Array With a peak rated power of 630 megawatts, London Array is the largest wind farm in Europe by capacity, and also the largest offshore plant in the world.

It's a brand new sector: the first steps date back to 2012. Today energy crowdfunding is a way of financing solar panel or wind turbine projects.

Opponents to wind turbines often claim that the noise and vibrations from the turbines affect their health , leading to sleep disturbance, headaches and a host of other problems.

In 2015 Denmark produced 42% of its electricity from wind turbines,  breaking the world record  of 39% that it set the previous year. But, this is only the beginning.

Mark Miodownik will never forget the day he became obsessed with materials. He was a schoolboy in 1985 when he was stabbed in the London Underground. “ When I saw that weapon in the police station later, I was mesmerized.

From pollution levels and the number of traffic accidents to safer public spaces and more efficient heating in buildings:  to what extent can the smartness of a city be quantified?  And  is it possible to measure the quality of life  for an urban area through numerical parameters? It’s all about collecting data that is reliable and making sense of the numbers afterwards.

Turkey has started considering its own sources to generate electricity as a way to make it less  dependent on fossil fuels, which account for 90% of the country’s current energy supply.

In the late 1980s, the German-born chemist Michael Grätzel literally tied his name to an invention that is hailed as a  revolution in renewable energy .