EU to promote clean energy with ’smart cities’

The EU’s bid for leadership in green technologies will focus on developing a network of “smart cities” to demonstrate renewable and other low-carbon energies in Europe. The recommendations are featured in a draft communication setting out funding for the EU’s Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET Plan). The EU executive is concerned that Europe is investing four times less in energy research and technology development than it did in the 1980s when faced with the oil crisis. It hopes that long-awaited funding proposals for the SET Plan will speed up the market uptake of low-carbon technologies that already exist, but are still too expensive to compete with fossil fuels.