EU funded project POCITYF launches Évora's Walk of the Sun, an interactive digital journey through seven sites in the heritage city centre, where solar technologies generate clean energy without altering the city's UNESCO-protected appearance.


The Walk of the Sun invites citizens to rediscover their city through a new lens: one that traces the integration of solar technologies across the city. Each point on the map marks not just a location, but a step in Évora’s effort to preserve its cultural heritage while reducing its carbon footprint.

The scrolly-telling experience guides visitors past schools, a municipal market, the Town Hall and public parking lots, revealing photovoltaic glass, canopies, skylights and roof tiles disguised as ordinary building materials. Over a 35-year period, the installations featured are expected to generate more than 12.4 million kWh of electricity, enough to power around 23,230 European households for a year, while avoiding an estimated 1,701 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Each solution had to satisfy Évora's heritage authority, which limited the size and visibility of several installations to protect the city's historic silhouette. The result is a set of technologies engineered to work quietly: transparent photovoltaic glass fitted into school windows, canopies that double as sun shelters, and roof tiles shaped and coloured to match traditional clay.

As you follow the path across Évora, you’ll see how the sun, a timeless presence in Portugal’s past, now illuminates the way forward.

Explore the pageflow: icons.pageflow.io/evora-s-walk-of-sun


Launched in 2019, the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project POCITYF has tested and demonstrated smart city innovations to raise energy performance in two lighthouse cities, Alkmaar (Netherlands) and Évora (Portugal), with a view to replicating them in six follower cities: Bari (Italy), Celje (Slovenia), Granada (Spain), Hvidovre (Denmark), Ioannina (Greece) and Újpest (Hungary).

POCITYF combines clusters of buildings that generate more energy than they consume – so-called positive energy blocks – with grid flexibility, e-mobility, innovative ICT and citizen engagement strategies, all while respecting urban cultural heritage. Now approaching its conclusion, the project continues to share its solutions so that other historic cities across Europe can pursue decarbonisation without compromising their cultural identity.