Towards efficient district heating and cooling in Europe

Euroheat & Power Events
15 September 2021 - 15 September 2021
online
by Upgrade DH

The final Upgrade DH project dissemination workshop “Towards efficient district heating and cooling in Europe” took place on Wednesday, 15 September 2021, online.

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 was 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 we 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. Our experiences and recommendations for the development or retrofitting of DHC networks were presented at the final project conference.

Additionally, in the afternoon, participants had 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.

Agenda and Presentations

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

10:10 – Energy efficiency legislation for the higher uptake of sustainable renewable heating and cooling (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 – How to implement the potential of DHC? Focus on Italy (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 (Anes Kazagic, EPBiH)
Cooperation with follower cases: Næstved – Denmark (Thomas Andreas Østergaard, COWI)
Best practice projects across Europe: Example of large solar thermal (Michael Kübler, 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)

13:00 – Lunch

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

Virtual power plant tour 1: Berlin, Germany, Vattenfall – Reuter West (Ruben Hoffmann, Vattenfall)
Virtual visit 2: Vilnius CHP Plant-2 – the main heat generation object of the City (Paulius Martinkus and Gytautas Kaulakys Vilnius DH Company)

14:30 – Time to explore virtual tours

15:00 – Farewell and online networking

16:00 – End