Jump start the EU heating / cooling strategy
Supporting sustainable District Heating system development in EU

In the run-up to the publication of the EU’s Heating and Cooling Strategy, several EU Member States have already started a process to promote and further develop low-carbon district heating systems. Each EU Member State has its own specific policy and market challenges in relation to ensuring adequate levels of investments in thermal grids and production capacities and in relation to promote effective competition and regulation frameworks to benefit both firms and final users.

Urban decarbonisation and innovation are also a relevant expected outcome of modern DH systems. In the aftermath of COP21, solutions at local level like DH can be an invaluable option to meet sustainability targets (and climate change in particular) and fit very well into EU community initiatives like the Covenant of Mayors or the European innovation Partnership on smart cities.

This event, which targets business operators, policy & decision makers and regulators, aims at discussing the barriers and the challenges for the promotion and innovation of district heating in a number of EU Member States (i.e. Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and The Netherlands). Various options will be explored, with the help of a qualified platform discussion in the second part of the seminar, on how to overcome such obstacles.
The ambition of this event is to identify a set of options and tools useful for Member States to take district heating to the next level within the EU.

Programme

9.30 Registration of participants

10.00 Welcome and opening remarks
Chair: Daniele Russolillo, Fondazione per l'Ambiente – Turin School of Local Regulation

10.10 Position on the EU Heating and Cooling (H&C) strategy: next steps
- Paul Voss, Managing Director of Euro Heat and Power
- Beatrix Widmer, CEEP Energy Task force

10.30 District Heating and key policy issues: main findings from BIOTEAM Project
- Gaps in current policy framework and search for a new “market model” for district heating, Eise Spijker, Joint Implementation Network, Netherlands
- Challenges regarding the development of the Italian district heating regulatory framework, Daniele Russolillo, Fondazione per l'Ambiente – Turin School of Local Regulation, Italy
- The market and policy issues in district heating in Lithuania, Diana Lukmine and Vita Tilvikiene, Lithuanian Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry, Lithuania
- Regulatory framework and market conditions to support coal phase-out strategy in district heating in Poland, Andrzej Szajner, BAPE, Poland
- Heat pricing and customers’ satisfaction in Finnish district heating systems, Kaija Hakala, MTT/LUKE, Finland

12.00 Remarks on BIOTEAM findings on district heating (DH) issues and next steps on H&C in EU Member States. Platform discussion coordinated by Daniele Russolillo, Fondazione per l’Ambiente – Turin School of Local Regulation
Discussants: Eva Hoos, EC-DG Energy  -  Ingo Wagner, Euro Heat & Power  -  Beatrix Widmer, Energy Task force of the European Centre of Employers and Enterprises providing Public Services  -  David Connolly, Coordinator of Heat Roadmap Europe at Aalborg University, Denmark  -  Eise Spijker, Joint Implementation Network, Netherlands
 

Some of the platform questions:

- What is the foreseen role of district heating in a market with many options for space heating and low unitary consumption rates for new efficient buildings ?

- What kind of regulatory framework do we need for district heating systems ?

-  How do we reconcile the need to increase energy consumption from renewables and DH ?

-  Is there a problem of financial sustainability for new small/medium DH networks ?

12.55 Concluding remarks

13.00  Networking lunch

Download the programme

The Heating and Cooling Strategy (16/02/2016) main documents:
Strategy
Memo
Workind Document part 1
Workind Document part 2

More resources on the Heating and Cooling Strategy:
https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/news/commission-proposes-new-rules-gas-and-heating-and-cooling-strategy