On March 6-7, the 6th interregional meeting was held in Utrecht, the Netherlands, hosted by the Province of Utrecht. The meeting was the last for phase 1 of the project. The main topic of the meeting was the discussion of the action plans. A workshop hosted by the lead partner and the Advisory partner gave the partners an opportunity to give feedback on each other’s’ action plans and to discuss the further development.
The first day ended with a presentation about the Merwedekanaalzone, a new inner city district in the city of Utrecht. This high density neighbourhood is planned as a mixed use area, where living, working and recreation are combined. The neighbourhood is developed with the ambition the city’s ambition of ‘healthy urban living’ in mind. The design of the neighbourhood facilitates new (business) initiatives.
On the second day the group was split in two: the lead partner hosted the steering group meeting for the project partners, the stakeholders were invited to join a presentation and city tour through the station area and Beurskwartier that is currently under development (project CU2030). In innovative start-up meeting center ANNE, two presentations were held by ambitious eco-SMEs from the Utrecht region: Solease presented their business case and market obstacles for solar panels for lease, Smart Solar Charging showed the local grid that they’ve built that uses local generated energy for electric shared vehicles. Through a system of that can both charge and discharge car batteries, the car battery can be used as storage for sustainable energy when not in use.
