Smart Infrastructure EU

The Oxford City Council has announced the commencement of an innovative eco-mooring initiative, providing electric infrastructure for boats to reduce air pollution in the city’s waterways.

The European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe program has launched the Sustainable Multi-functional and Recyclable Heat Pumps (SMART-PUMPS) project, delivering innovative, energy-saving, and highly efficient heat pumps (HPs) for residential buildings across Europe.

At a time when Europe is struggling with high electricity bills as a result of reduced energy supplies from Russia, the market for smart electricity meters is set for robust growth, with a total of 106 million smart electricity meters forecasted to be deployed across the region during 2022–2027, according to the latest study of the European smart metering market. More than 56% of the electricity customers in EU27+3 had a smart meter by the end of 2022. The study has closely tracked the development of the market since the research company’s inception in 2004. At the end of 2021, the EU27+3 region was home to nearly 163 million smart electricity meters, corresponding to a penetration rate of 53%. Growing at a robust CAGR of 5.8%, the installed base of smart electricity meters is expected to reach a penetration rate of 74% by 2027, driven by large rollouts in the UK, Poland and eventually also Germany and Greece, in combination with nationwide rollouts in several small- and mid-sized countries. The European smart gas metering market will meanwhile increase its installed base of devices, from 46 million units in 2021 to 76 million units in 2027.

In a bid to support Londoners who are digitally excluded, the London Recovery Board’s Digital Access for All Mission, jointly chaired by the Mayor of London and London Councils has set a goal for every Londoner to have access to good connectivity basic digital skills and the device or support they needed to be online by 2025.

If all goes according to plan, Britons will soon get to know which countries they can travel to without the hassle of quarantine or isolation.