#EURegionsWeek European Week of Cities and Regions 7-10 October 2019

DISTRICT HEATING AND COOLING: CITIES GOING CIRCULAR FOR A CARBON NEUTRAL EUROPE
 

On Thursday 10th October, 2019, UDITE co-hosted, with Energy Cities, the Interreg HeatNet project Codema, Leidal (a Flemish intercommunal organisation) and Veolia, District heating and cooling: cities going circular for a carbon neutral Europe. Kicking off the session the moderator, Kristina Dely from Energy Cities invited the audience to indicate (using Sli.do) which sector they represented. The breakdown showed local/regional authorities: 47%, NGO 13%, Business 7%, National-European decision maker 13%, and other 20%. 'ERDF has a vital role to play in the 2021 to 2027 period in ensuring climate friendly sustainable investment in technologies like DHC are realised between the public and private sectors going forwards' - Paul Gatt, UDITE President

Paul Gatt, UDITE’s President, spoke of the change that is confronting local authorities and especially technologies. Faced by aging populations, austerity, local authorities needed to find sustainable solutions for the long term. With climate at the top of the agenda and local authorities being the closest level of government to citizens, DHC is a critical technology locally especially with the transition to low temperature 5th generation technologies with wider application in rural areas and smaller districts. Donna Gartland, from Codema, representing the INTERREG HeatNet project, posed the question why local authorities should be involved in DHC. She outlined a number of economic, environmental and social reasons including the opportunity to reuse local resources, reduce carbon emissions, improve air quality, create revenue streams, generate employment and reduce fuel poverty with security of supply and stable prices with hot water on demand.

Donna concluded with 4 steps for local authorities: 1) knowledge sharing, 2) understanding the energy landscape (mapping), 3) supporting policies and incentives and 4) leading by example.

Kamila Waciega, from Veolia referred to a case study in Poznan, Poland’s 5th largest city where national and regional funds had come together in the drive to improve air quality by helping citizens to change their heating systems. The “Green Poznan Project” is a long-term partnership with Veolia since 2002. At the heart of the project is Volkswagen where its factory requires a lot of energy and produces significant waste energy that is used to supply the local DHC network. PPPs are vital and the ERDF has financed around a 1/3rd of the investment. Kamila underlined the importance of climate policies, national implementation and the vital role that ERDF will continue to play in the period 2021 to 2027.

Dominiek Vandewiele, a Sustainable Energy Manager from Leiedal in Belgium spoke about energy planning in smaller communities. Currently 75% of dwellings in his community are connected to gas grids. For Leiedal this grid has the potential for DHC as there are high density consumption areas but, in the past, have been constrained by the availability of very few waste heat sources. With the transition to 5th generation DHC, there is now a possibility to recover waste heat from a wastewater treatment plants via heat pumps in combination with geothermal storage. Planning is important to look for new development areas if we are to identify opportunities to install DHC networks.


Take away messages

  • Unbundling of the energy market done in the past years makes now more difficult to do sector coupling and have a new circular thinking.
  • New Energy Efficiency Directive has an article on DHC: now it has to be translated in the NECPs. It is not the case yet. New European Commission should pay attention to sector coupling.
  • DHC is a solution for more integration in the energy system.
  • It is challenging for small local authorities to access EU funds.


     
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