European projects focusing on sustainable heating and cooling

A demand-driven collaboration hub for efficient, integrated heating and cooling solutions supporting cities in their energy transition to carbon-neutral systems

Based on the premise that cities and districts are in a position to take the lead in the energy transition, the European Project CELSIUS, funded under the 7th Framework Programme, assembled a network of 72 cities and 68 City Supporters between 2014 and 2017. They joined the project partners (20 organisations from the public, private, and research institutions) to help cities plan, develop and optimise their district heating and cooling networks.

From 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2022

Cities and towns have developed along rivers, lakes and seashores, which provide access to environmental heat. In addition to this, waste heat sources are widely spread within the built environment. With this in mind, the main aim of the EU-funded REWARDHeat project is to develop a new generation of low-temperature district heating and cooling networks that will recover low-grade renewable and waste heat available at low temperatures. Its ultimate vision is to enable new ways to provide heating and cooling to buildings, making thermal energy a service, not a commodity.

From 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2023

5th generation heating and cooling (5GDHC), is a highly optimised, demand-driven, self-regulating, energy management system for urban areas. In this ultra-low temperature grid with decentralized energy plants, a closed thermal energy loop ensures hot and cold exchange within and among buildings.

The Interreg project D2Grids aims at rolling out this proven but underutilised concept to increase North-West Europe share of renewables. Four pilot sites in Bochum, Brunssum, Glasgow et Nottingham will demonstrate this impactful technology, to industrialise 5GDHC systems and boost its commercialization potential.

From 2018 to 2023

The ReUseHeat project will showcase replicable models enabling the recovery and reuse of excess heat available at the urban level, to increase the energy efficiency of district heating and cooling systems in cities across Europe.

From 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2022

The Upgrade DH project will support and initiate the upgrading process of 8 district heating demo cases in Europe in the following countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, and The Netherlands and will provide the basis for replication to other cities.

Core activities of the Upgrade DH project include the collection of the best practice project examples of recently retrofitted DH networks and best practice instruments/tools for diagnosing and retrofitting networks. Innovative business and organisational models will be applied, the upgrading process for selected DH networks will be supported, the organisation of capacity building measures about DH upgrading, financing and business models will be organised, and national and regional action plans will be elaborated. In addition, an image raising campaign for modern DH networks will be carried out.

From 1 May 2018 to 30 September 2021

Chess Setup (Combined HEat SyStem by using Solar Energy and heaT pUmPs) objective is to design, implement and promote a reliable, efficient and profitable system able to supply heating and hot water in buildings mainly from renewable sources.

The proposed system is based on an optimal combination of solar thermal energy production, seasonal heat storage and the use of highly efficient heat pumps. The system operation will be optimized according to some external factors, as the electricity price or the users’ requirements, by using smart control and management systems developed specifically for the project.

From 1 June 2016 to 30 September 2020

eTEACHER aims to reduce energy consumption through more conscious energy behaviour of energy end-users in a wide range of buildings and tailored methods and strategies.

Changes in users’ behaviour have significant potential to reduce energy consumption in buildings. These changes include those motivated by innovative technological interventions. However, in this case, users must be not only informed but also sufficiently consulted, trained and supported regarding the technological changes to avoid poor performance in practice. The design of this project, incorporating social studies, consultation and testing of innovations, responds to this challenge to enable efficient and effective deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to encourage behavioural change.

From 1 October 2017 to 30 June 2021

The Heat Roadmap Europe project is mapping and modelling the heating and energy systems of the 14 largest users of heat in the EU, to develop new policies at the local, national, and EU level to ensure the uptake of efficient, sustainable, and affordable heating and cooling solutions. These 14 countries cover 85-90% of the heating and cooling demands in Europe!

From 1 March 2016 to 28 February 2019

THERMOS (Thermal Energy Resource Modelling and Optimisation System) is an EU Horizon 2020 funded research project that will develop the methods, data, and tools to enable public authorities and other stakeholders to undertake a more sophisticated thermal energy system planning, far more rapidly and cheaply than they can today.

From 1 October 2016 to 31 March 2021

The project “Low Temperature District Heating for the Baltic Sea Region” (LowTEMP) will make the district heating supply in the partner regions more sustainable and promote the installation of so-called 4th generation district heating networks. These systems are characterised by the transfer of lower temperature heat is optimally insulated pipes with reduced pipe dimensions. At the same time, multiple heat supply options are possible in these systems, i.e. the use of waste heat from industrial processes as well as renewable heat sources like geothermal and solar-thermal.

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The project aims to showcase how District Heating systems can be more resource-efficient and more energy efficient. COOL DH is designed to innovate, demonstrate, evaluate and disseminate technological solutions needed to use sources of very low-grade waste heat for heating of energy-efficient buildings via Low-Temperature District Heating (LTDH).

From 1 October 2017 to 30 September 2021

PLANHEAT will develop and validate an integrated and easy-to-use tool to support local authorities in selecting, simulating and comparing alternative low carbon and economically sustainable scenarios for heating and cooling. It will be validated in the three PLANHEAT cities.

From 1 October 2016 to 31 January 2020

The overarching goal of Hotmaps is the development of an open-source heating / cooling mapping and planning toolbox and to provide default data for EU28 at the national and local levels. These data and tools allow public authorities to identify, analyse, model and map resources and solutions to supply energy needs within their territory of responsibility in a resource and cost-efficient way. Those results will help authorities to develop heating and cooling strategies on a local, regional and national scale that are in line with RES and CO₂-Emission targets on national and EU levels.

From 1 October 2016 to 30 September 2020

The progRESsHEAT project assisted local, regional, national and EU political leaders in developing policy and strategies to ensure quick and efficient deployment of renewables in heating and cooling networks. All project resources (local strategy development process, national analyses, policy recommendations, training materials, webinars and event reports) are available on the website.

From: 1 March 2015 to 31 October 2017

SDHp2m stands for Solar District Heating (SDH) and actions from Policy to Market. The project addresses market uptake challenges for wider use of district heating and cooling systems (DHC) with high shares of RES, specifically, the action focuses on the use of large-scale solar thermal plants combined with other RES in DHC systems.

From 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2018

Tempo develops technical innovations that enable district heating networks to operate at lower temperatures and make them suitable for a sustainable energy system. The project aims to combine individual technologies into solution packages for dedicated application areas covering 90% of the European district heating market. TEMPO further seeks to empower consumers through digital solutions and will develop new business models.

HeatNet will address the challenge of reducing CO₂ emissions in North-West Europe by creating an integrated transnational NWE approach to the supply of renewable and low carbon heat (including waste heat) to residential and commercial buildings. District Heating and Cooling facilitate energy efficiency, less CO₂ emissions and a greener economy.

The RES H/C SPREAD project was aimed at developing six pilot regional plans for heating and cooling from renewable energy that could further support the planning efforts of other regions. It involved six regions – Castilla y Leon (Spain), Emilia Romagna (Italy), Riga (Latvia), Rhodope (Bulgaria), Western Macedonia (Greece) and Salzburg (Austria) – representing the main EU climatic zones, most of which are in the Mediterranean. Special attention has been devoted to improving participatory governance, enabling the cooperation of local, regional and national stakeholders. To this end, each region has established its own country governance committee to support the development and implementation of the plans.

LowUP – which stands for ‘Low valued energy sources UPgrading for buildings and industry uses’– will contribute to achieving Europe’s GHG reduction targets and increase energy efficiency. The project will develop and demonstrate three new efficient heating and cooling technologies that will significantly reduce both CO2 emissions and primary energy consumption.

From 1 November 2016 to 31 October 2020

The CE-HEAT project aims to improve the governance of energy efficiency by focusing on the field of waste heat utilization in Central European space and through increased exploitation of endogenous RES – waste heat. This field was identified as one of the most pressing issues at the regional and local scale – with little success in the past. At the same time, waste heat utilization is recognized as an important issue in the latest Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU). To improve governance in waste heat utilization, better and comprehensive planning, but also monitoring tools are needed.

Large quantities of waste heat are continuously rejected from industries. Most of this waste energy, however, is of low quality and is not practical or economical to recover it with current technologies. The Indus3Es project will develop an innovative Absorption Heat Transformer (AHT) for this purpose, focused on low-temperature waste heat recovery (below 130ºC, referred to as a recovered waste heat source temperature). The Indus3Es System will effectively recover and revalorize almost 50% of the low-temperature waste heat, increasing the quality of the waste source to the required temperature and reusing it again in the industrial process.

From: 1 October 2015 to: 30 April 2020

BERTIM will develop a prefabricated solution that will provide the opportunity to renovate improving energy performance, air quality, aesthetics, comfort, and property value at the same time while ensuring low intrusiveness during renovation works.

From: 1 June 2015 to: 31 May 2019

The main objective of TASIO project is to develop solutions dealing with the development of Waste Heat Recovery Systems (WHRS) based on the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology. These solutions are able to recover the waste heat produced in energetic intensive (EII) processes of industrial sectors such as cement, glass, steelmaking and petrochemical and transform it into useful energy for internal or external use.

From: 1 December 2014 to: 31 May 2019