EUROPE: 1st European Solar Days: European Citizens to Celebrate Solar Energy

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Monday, 28 January 2008

Brussels, 28/01/2008: Today, the European Solar Days were officially launched at a press conference during the European Union Sustainable Energy week. The European Solar Days will be celebrated on May 16-17 with over 4000 events in 10 European countries.

As an awareness raising campaign, the European Solar Days aim to promote the use of the sun as an energy source for all solar applications, Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic, throughout Europe. The ‘Tag der Sonne’* was first celebrated in Austria in 2002, and the idea has already been taken up by Switzerland and Germany where, in the case of Germany a whole week is now dedicated to this campaign.

“The European Solar Days will help to bring solar energy closer to European citizens and let them discover all the many benefits this renewable source of energy offers. Citizens’ awareness turns energy consumers into energy actors.” says Dr. Winfried Hoffmann, EPIA President.

It is now time to bring the Solar Days to the rest of Europe – with Belgium, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Slovenia ready to go in 2008. Other countries are expected to join the initiative in 2009 and it is planned to extend the Solar Days throughout Europe in the future. The European Solar Days will bring together major players from the solar thermal and solar photovoltaic electricity sectors throughout Europe and will help in promoting the use of renewable energy.

The European Solar Days are also in line with the EU directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources which was presented on 23^rd January by the European Commission.

“This Directive proposal lets us start the New Year with even greater confidence in the growth of solar thermal”, stated Gerhard Rabensteiner, ESTIF President. “For the first time, an EU legislative proposal has the explicit purpose of supporting all renewables.. The race to meet the targets has already started and we can contribute strongly. The Member States should immediately improve their support schemes for solar energy, and not wait until the Directive is approved”. Both sectors solar thermal and photovoltaic will largely contribute to develop the use of decentralised renewable energy sources, adapted support mechanism such as feed-in tariff for solar electricity or legal obligations for new and renovated buildings support a long term introduction of these energy sources.

The European Solar Days, which are coordinated by ESTIF in close cooperation with EPIA, are supported by 25 organisations at a national and European level.