Resources to Tap
Here is where to find more information on Euroheat & Power as well as various
European and international initiatives mentioned in this article:
Euroheat & Power: www.euroheat.org
Ecoheatcool, a study of the European district heating and cooling market:
www.ecoheatcool.org
European Commission’s 2008 Strategic Energy Review – Securing our Energy Future:
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/strategies/2008/ 2008_11_ser2_en.htm
The 34th Congress of Euroheat & Power, May 25-26, 2009, Hilton Molino Stucky,
Venice, Italy: www.ehpcongress.org
District Energy Summit 2009: Leading the Way to Copenhagen, Nov. 3, 2009.
COP15, the 15th Conference of
the Parties under the United Nations’
Climate Change Convention,
Dec. 7-18, 2009, Copenhagen,
Denmark: http://en.cop15.dk
diversify energy imports, rather than on
infrastructure like district heating and
cooling that not only avoids energy
imports but also creates new jobs in
domestic industries. It is not yet well
understood that the heat market – unlike
other parts of the energy sector like
electricity or transport – does not have
an ‘input’ or ‘source’ problem. On the
contrary, the amount of surplus heat produced as an inevitable byproduct of many
energy transformation processes, including
electricity production, approximately
corresponds to the net heat demands in
Europe. Hence, the problem with the heat
market is neither availability of thermal
energy nor carbon content, but organization and investment.
and work toward achieving their national
potentials for CHP production. Several
member states have in the meantime
adopted new legal provisions ranging
from bonus payments on cogenerated
electricity (Germany) to reduced value-added tax rates (France) and investment
subsidies (Austria).
Throughout 2008 Euroheat & Power
very actively followed and provided input
to the negotiation of various EU legislative initiatives grouped in an ‘energy and
climate package’ to enable implementation of the agreed 2020 targets. The EU’s
new directive on the promotion of renewable energies, adopted in early 2009,
strongly encourages authorities to promote and plan for new district heating
and cooling systems.
Outlook for the Future
Nonetheless, a lot still needs to be
done, and the improvements made are
far from being sufficient enough to trigger the needed fundamental restructuring of the energy sector.
In November 2008 the European
Commission published its second Strategic
Energy Review, intended to launch a
reflection about a roadmap to decarbonize
the energy sector. To do this, the EU
cannot continue to rely on a business-as-usual approach based on centralized
solutions. The success of a centralized
approach would highly depend on a few
large actors in the electricity, oil and gas
business. In other words: The EU would
risk getting locked into a fundamentally
inefficient system and being highly
dependent on the commercial success
of unproven carbon capture and storage
as well as on increased public acceptance of nuclear power.
The Strategic Energy Review points
to energy efficiency as one of the most
important European energy policies
regarding energy security, in addition to
its role in combating climate change. As a
result, the European Commission should
be expected to give highest priority to
energy efficiency when preparing the
roadmap.
For the district heating and cooling
sector, a new Euroheat & Power initiative, the Technology Platform DHC Plus,
has been launched. Eighteen partners –
research experts from utilities, equipment
suppliers, universities and research institutes – are committed to participating. All
have expressed their firm commitment to
ensure the district heating and cooling
sector will set the pace for system intelligence beyond traditional energy supply
and demand concepts. The group has
already started work on a long-term vision
for district heating and cooling as leading
technologies for a carbon-neutral society
and is ready to contribute its ideas to
the debate.
Yet it seems European policy makers
have gotten used to putting the greatest
focus on infrastructure to increase and
European policy makers have
gotten used to putting the
greatest focus on infrastructure
to increase and diversify energy
imports, rather than on district
heating and cooling.
Furthermore, policy making within
both the EU and its member states is
usually organized in departments, which
often leads to disjointed analysis and
actions instead of triggering system efficiency. Policies tend to be focused narrowly on a single segment of the energy
landscape, targeting demand pressures,
for example, but ignoring the supply
sector, or focusing on renewables but
not on energy efficiency. This also often
makes it hard to find anyone who is
politically responsible for securing coherence and system optimization from a
primary energy perspective. And finally,
when talking about recovering heat that
otherwise would be lost, we’re talking
about using an energy source that is not
even recorded as such in statistics.
Beyond simple lack of awareness,
some policymakers also still have active
prejudices against district heating. This
applies particularly in Eastern European
countries where district heating is actually widespread. In these countries, as
in Russia, district heating was an integral
part of the old Soviet infrastructure, and
people have memories of very inefficient
