District Energy - 2007 Second Quarter

Feature
Story
Ecoheatcool:
Gauging district energy’s
potential in Europe

Sven Werner, Department of Energy & Environment, Chalmers University of Technology

What is the potential for expanding district energy in Europe? What are the implications of that potential for European policy objectives? What strategies are needed to encourage the development of sustainable heating and cooling supply options?

These questions were at the heart of a study coordinated during 2005 and 2006 by the Brussels-based organization Euroheat & Power. Known as Ecoheatcool, the project involved the participation of 12 partners – mainly national district heating associations – and was supported by the European Intelligent Energy program, managed by the European Commission.

Ecoheatcool aimed to illustrate how district heating and cooling could further expand in the European Union and offer higher energy efficiency and higher security of supply while reducing carbon dioxide emissions. To that end, the study focused on the energy picture in 32 European countries (see sidebar): the 25 EU member countries as of 2005, four countries in process for accession to the EU, plus three European Free Trade Association member countries. (In 2003, these countries had a total population of 573 million.)

Ecoheatcool Target Countries

European Union Member Countries, 2005:

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

Countries in Process for Accession to European Union: Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Croatia. European Free Trade Association Countries: Iceland, Norway, Switzerland.

Information for the Ecoheatcool project was gathered from the International Energy Agency and other relevant Eurostat databases, with 2003 chosen as the reference year. (Eurostat is the Statistical Office of the European Communities.) The study’s focus was commercial heat deliveries – mainly district heating – and other energy supply within the electricity and net heat demands in the industrial, residential and service sectors. As a result, the project had a pronounced demand perspective. (All amounts of energy, electricity and heat are expressed with multiples of joule, the international standard unit for energy since 1960. The highest

standard prefix used is exa, equal to 10¹⁸. The exajoule, or EJ, is only about 5 percent smaller than the American energy unit of 1 quad or quadrillion, which is 10¹⁵Btu.)

Key Findings

Ecoheatcool yielded a wealth of useful information about the EU energy balance as well as heating and cooling markets (see sidebars). These data provide a picture of current market status and laid the groundwork for Ecoheatcool’s strategic recommendations.