Green Transition @LPS25

14:00 – 15:30, Hall L1/L2

The ESA GTIF (Green Transition Information Factories) initiative is addressing information needs in the context of the Green Transition and the European Green Deal. It seeks to develop EO driven solutions to address key Green Transition challenges by utilizing EO together with geospatial and interdisciplinary data as well as advanced analytics and UI/UX technology. GTIF capabilities are developed in a co-creation approach with actors and stakeholders of across various the Green Transition domains and iteratively evolved to address their operational needs.

The initial GTIF Demonstrator was developed for Austria and released publicly in Spring 2023 [https://gtif.esa.int/]. The Austrian demonstrator is currently going through a consolidation phase aimed at optimising the capabilities for stakeholders, for example from the energy and mobility sectors. Moreover, capabilities are being operationalised and transitioned into cloud-based on demand services that are optimised for FAIR compliant re-use and made available at a commercial level. Finally, the Austrian consolidation phase will also facilitate the handover to the Austrian community for future operation, maintenance and evolution.

Several additional GTIF projects have been initiated in the last year. Regionally these cover the Baltic countries, UK, Ireland, France and the North Atlantic region between Canada and Northern Europe. Each project develops several new capabilities for example in the renewable energy, mobility, agri/aquaculture domains.

This session will provide an overview of the larger GTIF initiative and various contributing projects. The session will further showcase selected capabilities that were developed and highlights aspects of operationalisation and uptake in stakeholder networks. Finally, also the larger ESA strategy for scaling GTIF, its linkages to the ”Space for a Green Future” accelerator (S4GF) as well as the envisioned business logic for future operations and long-term sustainability will be presented.

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

14:00 – 15:30, Hall L3

This session explores the role of Earth observation data and services in the energy sector, providing insights to support decision making among various energy stakeholders, including policymakers and industrial actors. Topics in the scope of this session include (and not limited to): ​

• Relevant EO initiatives, products and integrated solutions serving the energy transition in Europe and beyond. Examples can cover the advances of EO in diverse applications related to energy transition, sustainability and resilience across various segments of the energy value chain (e.g. energy planning and resource management, energy production and operations, storage, transportation, distribution, and consumption, energy efficiency and performance monitoring, environmental impact assessment, infrastructure monitoring and resilience, hazard and risk assessment, decommissioning etc). Examples focusing on operational use-cases and solutions addressing final users and stakeholders are encouraged to illustrate the current uptake of EO-integrated solutions for the energy transition. ​

• Evolving user requirements in the energy sector and gaps in current EO capabilities, along with potential developments and solutions to effectively address them. ​

• Leveraging technological advances and innovative analytics to accelerate the energy transition (e.g. AI-driven predictive analytics). ​

This session is addressed to individuals, stakeholders and energy sector representatives with interest in the use of EO for the energy transition including: ​

• Policy-making entities: Governmental authorities and agencies, national or regional regulatory bodies.​

• Industrial stakeholders: Grid operators, energy and utility companies, energy investors, traders and asset owners, energy project development agencies, energy consulting firms etc.​

• EO data and service providers for energy-related applications from both public and commercial offerings, as well as energy system integrators.

Speakers:

Tim Heijmann – Evenflow
Helga Weber – Deutscher Wetterdienst
Angela Meyer – BFH & TU Delft
Quentin Paletta – ESA
Dr Rui Song – University of Oxford
Sonia Ponce de León – CENTEC-IST

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

16:15 – 17:45, Hall L3

This session explores the role of Earth observation data and services in the energy sector, providing insights to support decision making among various energy stakeholders, including policymakers and industrial actors. Topics in the scope of this session include (and not limited to): ​

• Relevant EO initiatives, products and integrated solutions serving the energy transition in Europe and beyond. Examples can cover the advances of EO in diverse applications related to energy transition, sustainability and resilience across various segments of the energy value chain (e.g. energy planning and resource management, energy production and operations, storage, transportation, distribution, and consumption, energy efficiency and performance monitoring, environmental impact assessment, infrastructure monitoring and resilience, hazard and risk assessment, decommissioning etc). Examples focusing on operational use-cases and solutions addressing final users and stakeholders are encouraged to illustrate the current uptake of EO-integrated solutions for the energy transition. ​

• Evolving user requirements in the energy sector and gaps in current EO capabilities, along with potential developments and solutions to effectively address them. ​

• Leveraging technological advances and innovative analytics to accelerate the energy transition (e.g. AI-driven predictive analytics). ​

This session is addressed to individuals, stakeholders and energy sector representatives with interest in the use of EO for the energy transition including: ​

• Policy-making entities: Governmental authorities and agencies, national or regional regulatory bodies.​

• Industrial stakeholders: Grid operators, energy and utility companies, energy investors, traders and asset owners, energy project development agencies, energy consulting firms etc.​

• EO data and service providers for energy-related applications from both public and commercial offerings, as well as energy system integrators.

Speakers:

Dr. Annekatrin Metz-Marconcini – German Aerospace Center – DLR
Enora Lecordier – Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull
Filippo Vecchiotti – Geosphere Austria
Georgia Karadimou – KSAT
Aleksandra Kaczmarek – Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics, Faculty of Geoengineering, Mining and Geology, Wrocław University Of Science And Technology
Elke Kraetzschmar – IABG mbH

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

10:00 – 10:45, Frontiers Agora

Transformation of the energy sector is crucial for a sustainable and green future, relying on a low-carbon energy mix and enabling sustainable development, economic growth, and resilience.​

​ This session explores the role of space technology in driving the transformation of the energy sector, underpinning integrated solutions to support decision-making and operational processes for the energy transition. Through expert insights from different stakeholder groups in the energy sector, the session will shed the light on opportunities for the adoption and scaling of space solutions and identify barriers which must be overcome. The scope is broad and will include societal, technical, business and regulatory challenges. ​

​ Discussions will address how innovative space technologies, digitalisation and artificial intelligence are impacting the energy sector and how to fully leverage their potential. The session will also discuss collaboration opportunities between the space and the energy sector, laying the ground for further networking among diverse energy actors from both the supply and demand sides.

Moderators:

Richard Eyers – Richard Eyers Geoscience & Photography
Zaynab Guerraou – ESA

Speakers:

Julien Fiore ​– Remote Sensing Team Lead at TotalEnergies France
Maziar Golestani​-Head of Metocean & Site and System Design Project Management, Vattenfall
Itziar Irakulis Loitxate​ – IMEO Scientist, UNEP
Werner Hoffman​ – WU Energy think tank

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

17:45 – 18:30, ESA Agora

The ESA GTIF (Green Transition Information Factories) initiative is addressing the information needs in the context of the Green Transition and develops analytical capabilities and decision support tools to address the operational needs of users and stakeholders and support their processes.

This Agora session will dive into the GTIF co-creation approach, in which Green Transition users and stakeholders are engaged to bring forward information needs and requirements from their operational working context. These requirements are then analysed by the contributing GTIF industry teams and ESA experts to develop initial versions of dedicated capabilities which combine value-adding algorithms, user interface embeddings with cloud computational scaling and quality assurance aspects. Subsequently, these capabilities are further evolved to correspond to specific stakeholder requirements. Operationalisation of such capabilities and uptake in user and stakeholder operational processes is the ultimate goal of this co-creation process.

This Agora will reflect on experiences, lessons learned and success stories of stakeholder engagement and co-creation in the different GTIF projects. It will feature speakers from across the different GTIF projects and currently covered countries (i.e., Baltics, UK, Ireland, France, North Atlantic, Danube region).

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

8:30 – 9:45, Room 0.14

For decades, space capabilities have proven to be useful to mitigate the impact of climate change on our ecosystems, economies, and societies. Despite this, space capabilities remain underutilized in driving the urgent and tangible climate action needed as the world faces escalating climate-related risks and challenges. This networking session, open to all, provides a platform to identify immediate collaboration opportunities between and among ESA and non-space actors in aid of the green transition. Green transition topics span impact sectors such as insurtech, agriculture, forestry and many others. Through pitches  and moderated thematic discussions between the user communities and the service providers, the session aims at identifying needs and collaboration opportunities to co-develop and scale space-integrated solutions to accelerate the green transition.

ESA moderators:

Cristina Bramanti, Beatrice Barresi 

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

11:30 – 13:00, Room 0.14

This networking session connects energy stakeholders with EO providers to explore opportunities to address the energy sector needs and challenges using space capabilities. Participants will discuss end-user needs and challenges, linking them to innovative space capabilities. The session also aims at exploring new collaboration opportunities between the energy and space sector and discussing pathways to scale EO adoption in the energy sector.

ESA moderators:

Stefano Ferretti,  Zaynab Guerraou, Ola Grabak, Asimina Syriou

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

16:15-17:45, Room 1.34

ESA emphasizes a partner-centric approach to the global green transition, where practical space-based capabilities are harnessed by governments, institutions, industries and civil society green transition actors. This insights session will highlight contributions from several ESA partners and stakeholders, showcasing how they use and integrate space data and services in their strategies, decision-making and operational processes in support of climate action. Partners will have the opportunity to present their needs and challenges related to EO, fostering dialogue with space providers to identify existing solutions or collaboration opportunities to co-develop new ones. The session will feature a series of short presentations by partners and stakeholders covering several critical topics, from enhancing policy and decision-making processes to accelerating decarbonization in key industrial sectors and enabling informed finance and investment strategies.

ESA Moderators:

Zaynab Guerraou, Catrin Lewis 

Speakers:

Fani Kallianou de Jong – Principal Manager in the Climate Strategy and Delivery Department of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Dušan Chrenek – Principal Adviser for ‘Digital for the Green Transition‘ in the Directorate-General for Climate Action of the European Commission 
Mila Luleva – Head of Remote Sensing at Rabobank
Nikoletta Fodor – Project Officer at Solar Power Europe
Nga Thi Viet Nguyen – Economist in the World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Global Practice
Mohammad Qasim- Products Manager for Carbon and Biodiversity at the Forest Stewardship Council

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

15:30 – 16:15, ESA Agora

Despite the proven value of EO data and services across several use-cases in different sectors, scaling their uptake and integration into decision-making and operational end-user processes still suffers from several impeding factors. These include the fragmentation of the EO service and platform landscape, heterogeneity in user customization needs and fitness-for-purpose gaps in operational contexts, along with the limitations in scaling, funding mechanisms and innovative business and partnership models.

The session will discuss these challenges, linking them to digital innovation and collaboration opportunities to accelerate EO-integrated solution adoption and impact. It will explore how digital innovation, cross-sector collaboration and new digitally enabled business and partnership models can address these barriers, blurring the line between EO and non-EO capabilities and reaching a long tail of end-users.

Moderator:

Zaynab Guerraou (ESA), Salvatore Pinto (ESA)

 Speakers:

Annekatrien Debien, Principal & Head of Brussels Office at Novaspace
Peter Becker Technical Director – Imagery Information Systems and Workflows at ESRI
Gopal Erinjippurath – Founder and CTO at Sustglobal
Karen Joyce – Co-founder and Product Lead, GeoNadir
David Fernandes – GIS Consultant at EDP

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.

17:45 – 18:30, Nexus Agora
Space capabilities have long provided essential data and insights on climate change, but their potential for driving urgent climate action remains far from realized. Moving forward, space technology solutions should be integrated into the policies and practices of impact sector multipliers, international financial institutions and policymakers, in support of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This Agora session will explore, among other topics, how to unlock the potential of space for stakeholders in key sectors related to the green transition, also ensuring that space-based contributions are strategically deployed and sustainable in the long-term, to maximise the impact of space for non-space to drive research and economic investment. The session will take the form of a moderated panel discussion with representatives from ESA and stakeholders.

Moderators:

Sveinung Loekken – ESA

Fani Kallianou de Jong- European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

Speakers:

Dušan Chrenek – Principal Adviser for ‘Digital for the Green Transition’ in the Directorate-General for Climate Action of the European Commission  
Benjamin Koetz- Head of the Long Term Action Section at the European Space Agency
Benjamin White – Ecosystem Services Technology Officer at the Forest Stewardship Council’s Investments and Partnerships. Director of Research and Innovation at AfricaASAP. Senior Advisor at ME&A inc., Chief Geographer and Program Manager at Rede-Verde Conservation Network
Melissa de Kock, Deputy Director of UNEP-WCMC

Check the most up-to-date session description in the main LPS Programme.