© 2002 WIT Press, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton, SO40 7AA, UK. All rights reserved. Web: www.witpress.com Email
[email protected] Paper from: The Sustainable City II, CA Brebbia, JF Martin-Duque & LC Wadhwa (Editors). ISBN 1-85312-917-8 Solar City Gelsenkirchen: From thousand fires to thousand suns F. Wouters, S. Gajewski Ecojjs GmbH, Koln, Germany 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 programmed. 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 Ci~’ 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 So!ar 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.