The two-day conference organised by the Association of Polish Cities, patronage over the event having been extended by the Speaker of the Wielkopolskie Voivodship, was accompanied by the announcement of Winners and Finalists of the “Local Government Leaders of Governance 2023” Competition, and the Local Development Forum Seminar described herein.

“Today, we will be focusing on energy transition in reference to Smart Cities, ones capable of securing and efficiently developing state-of-the-art technologies, and making decisions on basis of specific information,” said Sectoral Advisor to the Association of Polish Cities Tomasz Kayser during the meeting.

It is no chance that the meeting was held in Piła, a city aspiring to the position of an urban energy transition leader with a particular focus on hydrogen use. Notably, the Wielkopolskie Voivodship adopted a Wielkopolska of Hydrogen Development Strategy in April 2023.

Topics discussed at the Local Development Forum Seminar included energy self-sufficiency base on Green Energy use. This item on the seminar agenda included a presentation by Petter Olsen Bertheussen who spoke of the experience of the Norwegian city of Bodø.

The Mayor of Piła of many years and now Member of the Sejm (Lower House of the Polish Parliament) Piotr Głowski, Ph.D., described the hydrogen-based energy transformation carried out by municipal city authorities over recent years. Stefan Franke of the German Marburg-Biedenkopf county spoke of efficient hydrogen use in municipal economy. Seminar attendants listened to a presentation on the use of nuclear energy in transformation processes in urban environments. Jacek Bogusławski of the Speaker’s Office of the Wielkopolskie Voivodship presented and described the Wielkopolska Hydrogen Development Strategy.