Kozani

Greece

Mission city Pilot city
Greece National Platform
Kozani Mission City Label
Population 71k
City Area 87.9 km²
City active since June 2022

The Municipality of Kozani (MoK), with its more than 71.000 citizens, is located in the north-west part of Greece and has been the entire Greece’s energy centre since 1955, when the huge lignite deposits were discovered and their exploitation to produce electricity has begun. For the following decades, Kozani has held a leading role in the country’s electricity scenery, producing more than 75% of the country’s total electricity.

 

This heavy production of electricity brought high development standards for the entire Region, but, as it was based on fossil fuels, this development came at a high cost, as the environmental degradation and the health problems came along, further multiplying as the lignite-based electricity production surged in the beginning of the current century.

 

However, things started changing in the last decades at global level: the Paris Agreement in 2015, signed by the vast majority of countries around the world, calls for holding the rising temperature level at “well below” two degrees Celsius to avoid an irreversible environmental degradation.

 

Greece has signed the historic Paris Agreement on climate change, in December 2015, as it has also supported the European Green Deal, approved in 2020. The EU Green Deal legislated that EU’s greenhouse gas emissions should be 55% lower in 2030 compared to 1990, with the main goal of achieving climate neutrality in 2050.

Latest updates from the city

Pilot project spotlight

Kozani's Pilot City Activity: NEUTRON

01/06/2023 - 31/05/2025 pilot activities 01/06/2025 - 31/12/2028 demo activities Description of activities The NEUTRON pilot will develop and showcase the methodology to support the transition via the definition of existing innovative technologies, such as