Online Café Series – A brief flashback on what happened so far?

If you are looking for some casual talks with like-minded people and at the same time deepen your knowledge on energy policy and energy transition related topics, you should definitely give Online Café Series a shot. 

We are opening our doors on every last Tuesday of each month between 19:00-20:15 CET. The format is the same for all the Online Café Sessions and it is more interactive than a regular webinar. After the presentation of our speaker, we are giving you the chance to interact with other participants in the breakout rooms (3-4 participants in each room) for about 10 minutes. Within these small groups you can introduce yourself to the others and talk about the topic of the session or anything else that you find interesting. After the breakout rooms, there is a Q&A session, where you can ask the speaker anything you want. 

Our aim as the Online Café Team is to cover as many different fields as possible in energy policy and energy transition.  We would like to do it in a more interactive way, because we believe in the importance of communication and sharing knowledge with each other to tackle one of the biggest challenges that humankind has faced. So far, in 2021 we have tried to cover different topics in order to reach a broader audience. In the first half of 2021, we have organized 5 Online Café Sessions and 1 Deep Dive Session.

The January Online Café Session was about European power outlook and the speaker for  the session was Zaheer Ahamed. During the session the basics of the European electricity market, the different price drivers, the expected scenario of the energy system by 2050 and the policies that will shape the energy landscape by 2050 were discussed.

After the January session, a Deep Dive Session was held on the topic of EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). For this deep dive session, we used a different format; there was more time for the presentation, and then without the breakout sessions we went directly to Q&A. The speaker for this session was Florian Rothenberg, who gave  a detailed overview of the ETS. 
   
The February Online Café Session was on Energy Intensive Industries (EIIs). The speaker for the session was Davide Garufi. During the session an overview of EIIs in the EU with statistics and guidelines from the EU Commission was presented. Afterwards the EU-ETS and its relation with EIIs was discussed and  a possible path towards carbon neutrality by 2030, with projects, technological trends and KPIs of EIIs was analysed.

The March Online Café Session was on UN Climate Negotiations and the speaker for the session was Federico Brocchieri. In this session the structure of the climate negotiations and the role of different alliances like G7,EU, Environmental Group and Umbrella Group were analysed. Federico also spoke about his personal experience from some of the COPs that he attended.

The April Online Café Session was on “The urgent need for transformative social innovation in energy transitions” and the speaker for the session was Tessa de Geus. DRIFT systems models and Multi-level Perspective were explained for social innovation and its need and requirement were discussed. Some  important topics such as energy co-operatives, peer to peer electricity exchange and energy gamification were  analyzed towards the end of the session.

The May Online Café Session was on “The role of nuclear energy in a carbon neutral europe”. The speaker for the session was Fabio Martini. During the session key figures on nuclear power and the integration of nuclear and variable renewables for electricity production were presented. In addition, a deep decarbonization with nuclear energy through cogeneration and  process heat was analysed. Towards the end of the session the economics behind nuclear power and the importance of including it in the EU Green Taxonomy was discussed. 

If you would like to check the recordings of the sessions, you can simply click on the links on each paragraph. After our summer break, we continue the Online Café Series with our September Session, which (as usual) will happen on the last Tuesday, 28th September at 19:00. Our speaker will be Laurent Bontoux, who has been in foresight at the Commission’s Joint Research Centre where he is Senior Foresight for Policy Expert. He will talk about Foresight in practice – Using scenarios to shape the future. For more information and registering to the session, you can visit the event page on the CommUnity Platform by clicking here.

If you are interested and you would like to be a speaker in one of our sessions, you can fill this form and we will then keep in touch with you ;). Furthermore, we have also created a group on the CommUnity Platform where we can discuss the topics with the like-minded people even after the Online Café Sessions. You can find the group on the CommUnity Platform or simply by clicking here. 

Or, if you would like to be part of our Online Café Team and want to organize these sessions with us, please write to [email protected]. 

Hope to see you with us in one of the Online Cafés!

Some Testimonials
If you would like to know how some of the participants evaluates the Online Café experience, here are some testimonials:

“Seeing some familiar faces and learning some new things were great.”

“I really like the format (presentation, breakout rooms and then questions). Keep up with the great work!”

“Breakout sessions were good to meet new people.”

“I enjoyed it a lot. Perfect insight, not too much information, well structured and relaxed environment.”

“Having a place to discuss an interesting subject with people from different backgrounds was great.”

“The informal tone of the session was refreshing!”