Partnerships & Campaigns

Rural development, including all agricultural activities,  mainly relies on fossil resources for covering energy requirements. Specifically, agricultural productivity in both open-field crop production and controlled environment agricultural constructions is supported to a great extent by fossil energy. High levels of fossil fuel use and the deterioration of natural carbon sinks have been related with the anthropogenic impact causing climate change.

Novel Fossil-Energy-Free Technologies and Strategies (FEFTS) related to more sustainable energy production and use have been developed by industry and research entities. However, these FEFTS have mainly been applied in urban and industrial environments, while in terms of rural applications (especially the agricultural sector), there is still an important gap between such developments and the actual adoption and use of the available tools and practices by the rural population, especially for small and medium producers with limited access to information.

Therefore, this Special Issue is devoted to novel and adapted technical solutions regarding defossilised energy supply and energy efficiency improvement in order to cover the specific needs of rural areas in an environmentally friendly manner, as well as policy recommendations for the fast adoption of FEFTS in these areas, aiming to reduce fossil-derived energy use.

The European Renewable Energy Research Centres Agency (EUREC) is affiliated to the open-access journal Energies (ISSN 1996-1073; CODEN: ENERGA) published monthly online by MDPI.

The journal covers research in energy engineering and sciences, with a strong focus on energy storage and conservation, biomass and bioenergy, renewable energy, electricity supply and demand, energy in buildings, and on economic and policy issues. The journal also welcomes papers on related topics such as energy modelling and prediction, integrated energy systems, energy planning and management, provided such topics are within the context of the broader multi-disciplinary scope of energy. Energies is covered by leading indexing services, including the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Ei Compendex, Scopus and other relevant databases. EUREC members enjoy a discount on the article processing charges in the journal Energies.

MDPI Special Issue open for submissions, edited by EUREC members:

Abstract submission deadline
15 June 2024
Manuscript submission deadline
15 November 2024

EUREC has previously coordinated two special issues, edited by EUREC members:

• Special Issue: Rural Renewable Energy Utilization and Electrification, deadline 30 December 2021
• Special Issue: Energy Digitalisation and Data, deadline 20 March 2023