Towards efficient district heating and cooling in Europe

The Upgrade DH project supports the upgrading and retrofitting process of district heating (DH) systems in different climate regions of Europe, covering various countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, and The Netherlands.

This event will be a perfect opportunity to present and discuss project results and achievements: the collection of the best upgrading measures and tools, upgrading processes of concrete DH systems initiated in each of the target countries, replication activities in other European countries and DH systems. Of course, the energy transition road has never been smooth, and project partners faced some challenges when implementing upgrading measures in our demo cases and supporting the modernisation process in selected district heating networks when looking for the appropriate financing and business models and trying to improve the public perception of DH networks. Upgrade DH experiences and recommendations for the development or retrofitting of DHC networks will be presented at the final project conference.

Additionally, in the afternoon, participants will have a chance to (virtually) visit two CHP plants that recently undertook upgrading measures and can serve as inspiration for other DH systems striving to become more efficient.

Register

Agenda

10:00 – Welcome & opening remarks (Paul Voss, Euroheat & Power)

10:10 – Keynote speech (Radoš Horáček, European Commission)

10:30 – Upgrading the performance of district heating networks – Technical and non-technical approaches (Dominik Rutz, WIP Renewables)

11:00 – What are the best tools and instruments in Eastern Europe? (Valdas Lukoševičius, LSTA – Lithuanian District Heating Association)

11:15 – Does your government have a Plan? Focus on Southern Europe (Lorenzo Spadoni, AIRU – Italian District Heating Association) 

11:30 – Coffee break

11:45 – Overview of Upgrade DH solutions (Matteo Pozzi, OPTIT)

12:00 – Roundtable discussion on how to foster replication (moderated by Rita Mergner, WIP Renewables)

• Success stories from demo cases: Tuzla – Bosnia and Herzegovina (EPBiH)
• Cooperation with follower cases: Næstved – Denmark (Thomas Andreas Østergaard, COWI)
• Best practice projects across Europe: Example of large solar thermal (Patrick Geiger, Solites)

12:30 – How to improve the perception of district heating at a local level? (Aksana Krasatsenka, Euroheat & Power)

12:45 – Conclusions & outlook (Stavros Stamatoukos, CINEA) *invited

13:00 – Lunch

14:00 – Welcome again & introduction to the virtual tours 1 & 2

• Virtual power plant tour 1: Berlin, Germany, Vattenfall – Reuter West (Vattenfall/AGFW)
• Virtual visit 2: Vilnius CHP Plant-2 – the main heat generation object of the City (Vilnius DH Company/LDHA)

14:30 – Time to explore virtual tours

15:00 – Farewell and online networking

16:00 – End