HRE has refined methodologies for mapping heating and cooling demand and resources in the EU at a level higher than any current projects. Peta 4.3 shows the 2015 energy demand per hectare and the explicit spatial potential for renewable resources and identifies excess heat potentials in Europe for 11 different industry sectors, while it allows for the calculation of the potential cost of heating and cooling infrastructures. Peta4.3‘s online interface has allowed people to interact with their local heat demands, and has been visited over 14.000 times since it was launched.
The profiling of the heating and cooling demand has given the most detailed overview available to date, in terms of fuels, conversion technology and building type, of the energy being used in 2015 in the heating and cooling sector, and forecasts these trends for 2030 and 2050. The outputs provide a detailed overview of how heating and cooling is being done in the residential sector, 8 service subsectors, and 8 industry subsectors. The inclusion of cooling demand and energy carriers, using a methodology developed in HRE, allows for a more detailed, quantified analysis of the role of cooling in the future EU energy system than previously possible. The inclusion of detailed industry sectors for the first time, of which almost half is process heat over 200 °C allows for a genuinely comprehensive analysis of the entire heating and cooling sector in Europe.
The energy modelling work conducted in the HRE has combined the JRC-EU-TIMES and EnergyPLAN modelling tools, allowing for a key integration of their strengths and a comprehensive overview of the energy system performance. For the Baseline projection, the JRC-EU-TIMES has allowed for an optimized energy system development, assuming the implementation of current policy, but no new developments.
For the scenario development, the energy system analyses tools were combined with cost and potential curves for energy savings in the (sub-) sectors profiled. For each of the 14 HRE countries four different scenarios (BL 2015, BL 2050, CD 2050, HRE 2050) were made, all technically functional in order to represent possible alternatives. By comparing and analysing the outcome of the future scenarios, it was shown that the strategy behind the HRE 2050 scenarios is the one with the greatest potential for reduction of CO2 emissions in the heating and cooling sector as well as the most cost-effective. The work culminated in 14 country-specific reports “Heat Roadmaps” plus one for the overall area, where the recommended strategies for decarbonising the heating and cooling sector were described. Additionally, 3 accompanying reports were created with guidelines and key messages intended for the lead-users at the three levels of policy-making (European, National and Regional-local level).
In terms of results exploitation HRE performed exceptionally: More than 300 lead-users from policymaking authorities were reached through workshops, 1-on-1 meetings and other events, while the digital and social media dissemination scored high (30.000 website visits, 2000 Twitter followers, 5000 downloads of project material). Peta 4.3 and the energy demand profiles have been already in use, most notably by staff of DG ENERGY, to present the magnitude of the heating and cooling sector in Europe.
