The Urban PowerXChange, hosted in Cape Town, South Africa, brought together cities from around the world to share knowledge and experiences related to urban energy resilience. This report summarizes the key findings and insights from the event.
Resilient Cities Network’s Urban Power program is designed to help cities strengthen the resilience of their energy system in the face of major global challenges such as climate change, urbanization, and increasing inequality. The program takes a holistic approach, addressing not only the resilience of local energy infrastructure, but also the crucial roles of energy governance, stakeholder engagement, and the interdependence of urban systems. It is built on three core programmatic pillars: equitable access to energy services, accelerating the deployment of renewable energy, and creating decent, green jobs. A key objective of the Resilient Cities Network is to facilitate peer-to-peer learning, enabling cities to break down the silos both within their own governments and across cities globally. While the challenges each city faces may be unique, the opportunities to learn from one another are immense. Energy systems, governance structures and resources vary, but many of the obstacles municipalities face in building robust, resilient energy systems and ensuring reliable access for their residents are strikingly similar.
In partnership with the City of Cape Town, Resilient Cities Network hosted the first in-person Urban Power Knowledge Exchange (PowerXChange) from 5 – 7 August 2024 in Cape Town. This event brought together eight program cities, along with two additional member cities from North America (San Francisco and New Orleans), for whom energy resilience is a key priority for advancing their urban resilience journey.
The PowerXChange aimed to provide cities with valuable insights into the policies, actions, tools, solutions, partnerships and governance frameworks necessary to achieve energy resilience, ensure equitable access to clean energy, accelerate renewable energy deployment and foster sustainable development.