Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is prompting the district heating sector to look at other options than fossil gas, with the industry’s representative in Brussels underlining the huge untapped potential of waste heat coming from industry and data centres among the immediately available options.
Geothermal power is a reliable and renewable energy source that is local by its nature and offers baseload power generation. Alongside energy efficiency measures and other renewable heat sources, like heat pumps, it could be part of the solution to Europe's energy crisis, says Sanjeev Kumar.
Geothermal is competitive with wind and solar technologies and can work together with them to create a reliable supply of renewable energy, according to Francesco La Camera, who sees geothermal capacity as growing up to eight-fold in the EU by mid-century.
Achieving climate neutrality by 2050 requires decarbonising the whole economy, including the energy-hungry heating sector, says Finland's Riku Huttunen. And that will involve cooperation at all levels of government, including local and EU authorities, he argues.
Wind and solar photovoltaic are way too small to cope with Europe's massive demand for heating, especially in winter, says Christian Holter who calls for allocating scarce renewable energy resources to economic sectors where they can bring the most in terms of carbon reduction.
Emissions from residential heating can be drastically reduced if Europe agrees a ban on new oil and gas boiler installations by 2030 at the latest, according to a Danish researcher who led an EU-wide study to decarbonise the heating and cooling sector.
As talks on the EU’s renewable energy rules resume, one of the main talking points is how to decarbonise the heating sector, and deploy technologies like heat pumps and district heating. The International Energy Agency’s Ute Collier told EURACTIV in an interview that the task is complex and difficult.
The city of Oslo surprised observers last year by announcing plans to introduce a “carbon budget” with the objective of halving its global warming emissions by 2020 and becoming carbon neutral by 2030. The city’s Mayor, Raymond Johansen, told EURACTIV.com how he intends to achieve this ambitious objective.
Nordic countries have relegated fuel poverty to the history books by setting legal minimum standards for heating and giving house-owners a strong incentive to invest in refurbishment, says the mayor of the Swedish capital.
The lack of hard EU legislation for the decarbonisation of Europe’s heating and cooling systems is a failure that puts the bloc’s climate goals at risk, Maarten De Groote, the head of research at the Buildings Performance Institute Europe, has warned.
EU energy strategies are currently overlooking significant energy savings that could be achieved with an integrated approach that allows the use of waste heat, according to Fiona Riddoch, managing director of Cogen Europe, and Sabine Froning, managing director of Euroheat&Power. They spoke to EURACTIV ahead of their joint annual conference today (2 June).
