Panagiotis Kosmopoulos was recently elected as an Associate Researcher in IERSD/NOA and during the meeting he had the chance to unfold his long-visioned plan to further the works of the energy pillar of APCG. His presentation included many aspects on the use of Earth Observation in energy planning and management highlighting the scientific and technical background that needs to be assured in all stages, introduced applications for near real time monitoring, short and long term forecasting and presented relevant evaluation processes, and finally demonstrated a number of real world uses cases in Egypt and India. The discussion was then mainly concentrated in smart city applications of PV penetration and the way forward to address solar energy potential within and in synergy with the rest of the activities of the group.