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Content archived on 2023-04-12

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Comprehensive heat and cold profiles of key EU Member States published

Heat Roadmap Europe (HRE), an EU-funded research project, has published datasets providing insight into the structure of the heat and cold supply in the EU and individual Member States. These publicly available datasets can be used by national and regional authorities and industry as the basis for strategic energy policy development and the European Commission in the next stages of its Heating and Cooling Strategy process.

HRE’s datasets break down information into digestible formats which reveal the heating and cooling (H&C) demand and energy balances for all 28 EU countries. The datasets provide a detailed picture of H&C energy use in the industrial, residential and service sectors, and break down how H&C accounts for the largest share (around 50 per cent) of final energy demand in the EU. The profiles assess how H&C is used and where itis most relevant, as well as which types of energy inputs (e.g. electricity, natural gas, biomass, etc.) supply the identified heating and cooling demands. The end result is an integrated picture of H&C demands for various market segments that can inform policy processes at multiple levels. All elements found in Eurostat’s final energy balances are covered by HRE as well, but further broken down by sub-sector, end-use technology and industrial temperature levels. The HRE approach combines empirical data, such as market shares, industrial production and technology stock, with bottom-up model-simulation to derive energy demands based on 2015 as its reference year. “The published data closes a major information gap and provides a solid understanding of the status-quo of European heating and cooling,” says Dr. Tobias Fleiter of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research. “Because of its depth of detail and high comparability between Member States, the HRE dataset offers huge added value to complement existing collections of national data, which often use differing definitions and methodologies. HRE’s consistent approach avoids such difficulties, making it easier to correlate H&C trends between countries.” The fact that HRE uses a consistent set of data means that it can be used as a quantitative basis for the development of coherent H&C policy strategies both at EU level and national level. Tjalling de Vries, Programme Manager for Heat at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate of the Netherlands, comments: “The Dutch energy policy and 2050 climate goals aim at a significant increase in energy efficiency and a clear shift from natural gas use to renewable heat sources and waste heat. The Heat Roadmap Project provides us with sound resources, and comparable data and analysis on a European level to design our energy policy in a smart way.” With negotiations on the Revision of the Renewable Energy Directive resuming this week, the data come at a crucial time for European Energy policy. To access the datasets, please visit: http://www.heatroadmap.eu/output.php

Keywords

Energy Efficiency, Energy Savings, Energy System, Heating, cooling, district heating, energy transition, renewables, thermal energy, energy demand

Countries

Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Sweden, United Kingdom

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