Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ReUseHeat (Recovery of Urban Excess Heat)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-06-01 al 2022-09-30
THE PROBLEM ADRESSED
The world is facing a climate crisis and fossil fuels need to be phased out with alternative energy supplies as soon as possible. In cities, as a result of people working and living in them, heat is generated continuously. Indeed, urban waste heat recovery can reduce the usage of the conventional fossil fuels making it a possible resource to speed up the energy transition. However, in spite of the potential of supplying 10% of the European building heat demand, limited urban waste heat recovery is undertaken.
IMPORTANCE TO SOCIETY
Under the principle of energy efficiency first it is important to waste as little energy as possible. Urban waste heat is a valuable energy resource that is currently emitted to ambient air. As a consequence, the local climate is further aggravated with the effect of heat islands forming in the urban context and primary energy that could have been spared for alternative use is wasted. It is the vision of the ReUseHeat project, that cities should be energy efficient and make use of the heat that its citizens generate by living/working and spending time in cities. By implementing urban waste heat recovery projects, the ReUseHeat project has an important, educative role by showing to different stakeholders that urban waste heat recovery is possible.
THE OVERALL OBJECTIVE
The main project objective is to demonstrate first of their kind advanced, modular and repliccable solutions enabling the recovery and reuse of waste heat available at the urban level from different sectors.
The world is facing a climate crisis and fossil fuels need to be phased out with alternative energy supplies as soon as possible. In cities, as a result of people working and living in them, heat is generated continuously. Indeed, urban waste heat recovery can reduce the usage of the conventional fossil fuels making it a possible resource to speed up the energy transition. However, in spite of the potential of supplying 10% of the European building heat demand, limited urban waste heat recovery is undertaken.
IMPORTANCE TO SOCIETY
Under the principle of energy efficiency first it is important to waste as little energy as possible. Urban waste heat is a valuable energy resource that is currently emitted to ambient air. As a consequence, the local climate is further aggravated with the effect of heat islands forming in the urban context and primary energy that could have been spared for alternative use is wasted. It is the vision of the ReUseHeat project, that cities should be energy efficient and make use of the heat that its citizens generate by living/working and spending time in cities. By implementing urban waste heat recovery projects, the ReUseHeat project has an important, educative role by showing to different stakeholders that urban waste heat recovery is possible.
THE OVERALL OBJECTIVE
The main project objective is to demonstrate first of their kind advanced, modular and repliccable solutions enabling the recovery and reuse of waste heat available at the urban level from different sectors.
MAIN RESULTS ACHIEVED
The project has delivered a number of main results that coincide with the milestones of the project. The first main result is that the urban waste heat potential has been quantified. It has been shown that urban waste heat can be used to meet 10% of the European building heat demand (total heat demand of approximately 10 EJ per year). This information has been transformed into a user-friendly format for future use, it is a layer on the waste heat map of Europe. From the map an interested stakeholder can enter the coordinates of any European location to identify what urban heat sources are present in the vicinity. This kind of information can be particularly helpful at initial stages of new district energy developments or refurbishment of existing networks.
Urban waste heat recovery installations are system innovations. That means that the stakeholders involved need to collaborate in new ways to efficiently install the system including a heat pump, the waste heat source and the way to distribute the heat to the customers. There is a hurdle effect for stakeholders to become aware that urban waste heat is accessible and that they can make use of it. The awareness level about urban waste heat recovery is low amongst stakeholders across the value chain. The second main result from ReUseHeat has been to draft a guideline for efficient urban waste heat recovery contracts in combination with an assessment of how the urban waste heat recovery business model differs from conventional, high temperature business models for district heating. Information on contracts, risks, bankability and business models adapted to urban waste heat recovery investments are found in the ReUseHeat handbook and can be accessed by any stakeholder interested in investing in urban waste heat recovery.
The third main result is implementation and monitoring of demonstration sites. An awareness creating demonstrator, allowing the knowledge level about urban waste heat recovery to be increased, has been built and demonstrated in the district energy network of La Seyne sur Mer in France. Waste heat has been recovered from a datacenter and used to heat approximately 400 new buildings in Braunschweig in Germany. In Madrid, Spain, waste heat has been recovered from the cooling towers of a hospital. One demonstrator was not implemented for different reasons, it was waste heat recovery from a metro tunnel. In spite of no demonstration being realized, a number of learnings were made and two concepts that are ready to install in other metro systems.
The fourth main result is to have identified possible replication sites showing that urban waste heat recovery is applicable in additional locations to the ones demonstrated in ReUseHeat. There is interest in replication of urban waste heat recovery in several places across Europe, for such cases information on replicability of the ReUseHeat solutions are particularly relevant.
The fifth main result is a handbook on urban waste heat recovery that summarizes the main lessons learned in ReUseHeat, targeting the main urban waste heat recovery stakeholders: district energy companies, waste heat owners, customers, policy makers and investors in green energy. As supplement to the book, six training modules on its contents have been recorded and are downloadable from the webpage of the book serving as a further tutorial for interested stakeholders to support their assimilation of handbook content.
The project has delivered a number of main results that coincide with the milestones of the project. The first main result is that the urban waste heat potential has been quantified. It has been shown that urban waste heat can be used to meet 10% of the European building heat demand (total heat demand of approximately 10 EJ per year). This information has been transformed into a user-friendly format for future use, it is a layer on the waste heat map of Europe. From the map an interested stakeholder can enter the coordinates of any European location to identify what urban heat sources are present in the vicinity. This kind of information can be particularly helpful at initial stages of new district energy developments or refurbishment of existing networks.
Urban waste heat recovery installations are system innovations. That means that the stakeholders involved need to collaborate in new ways to efficiently install the system including a heat pump, the waste heat source and the way to distribute the heat to the customers. There is a hurdle effect for stakeholders to become aware that urban waste heat is accessible and that they can make use of it. The awareness level about urban waste heat recovery is low amongst stakeholders across the value chain. The second main result from ReUseHeat has been to draft a guideline for efficient urban waste heat recovery contracts in combination with an assessment of how the urban waste heat recovery business model differs from conventional, high temperature business models for district heating. Information on contracts, risks, bankability and business models adapted to urban waste heat recovery investments are found in the ReUseHeat handbook and can be accessed by any stakeholder interested in investing in urban waste heat recovery.
The third main result is implementation and monitoring of demonstration sites. An awareness creating demonstrator, allowing the knowledge level about urban waste heat recovery to be increased, has been built and demonstrated in the district energy network of La Seyne sur Mer in France. Waste heat has been recovered from a datacenter and used to heat approximately 400 new buildings in Braunschweig in Germany. In Madrid, Spain, waste heat has been recovered from the cooling towers of a hospital. One demonstrator was not implemented for different reasons, it was waste heat recovery from a metro tunnel. In spite of no demonstration being realized, a number of learnings were made and two concepts that are ready to install in other metro systems.
The fourth main result is to have identified possible replication sites showing that urban waste heat recovery is applicable in additional locations to the ones demonstrated in ReUseHeat. There is interest in replication of urban waste heat recovery in several places across Europe, for such cases information on replicability of the ReUseHeat solutions are particularly relevant.
The fifth main result is a handbook on urban waste heat recovery that summarizes the main lessons learned in ReUseHeat, targeting the main urban waste heat recovery stakeholders: district energy companies, waste heat owners, customers, policy makers and investors in green energy. As supplement to the book, six training modules on its contents have been recorded and are downloadable from the webpage of the book serving as a further tutorial for interested stakeholders to support their assimilation of handbook content.
PROGRESS BEYOND THE STATE OF THE ART
The heat pump technology is in itself not new, neither is the prevalence of urban heat sources. The combination of the two into one system that efficiently serves as a heat source for district heating networks is, however, new. One important hurdle to large scale urban waste heat recovery is a limited empirical knowledge on how to recover low temperature heat into existing district heating networks. The datacenter heat recovery and the heat recovery form the cooling towers of the hospital are forerunner installations and serve an important role for extending the state of the art of urban waste heat recovery of these two heat sources. The dashboard for generating awareness is unique in its kind and, also serves as a forerunner in establishing a demand for urban waste heat recovery amongst different stakeholders like cities and end-users alike.
The handbook generated in the project summarizes unique and new information on urban waste heat potential, business aspects and demonstration in one place. The handbook itself is a guideline for extending the state of the art further.ReUseHeat has increased the overall urban waste heat awareness, skills and capabilities of district heating practitioners, owners of urban waste heat, customers, policy makers and investors in the field of green energy.
In terms of key performance measures, the project has realized 3.9 GWh or primary energy savings during its lifetime reflecting 1 GWh of primary energy per invested million of €.
The heat pump technology is in itself not new, neither is the prevalence of urban heat sources. The combination of the two into one system that efficiently serves as a heat source for district heating networks is, however, new. One important hurdle to large scale urban waste heat recovery is a limited empirical knowledge on how to recover low temperature heat into existing district heating networks. The datacenter heat recovery and the heat recovery form the cooling towers of the hospital are forerunner installations and serve an important role for extending the state of the art of urban waste heat recovery of these two heat sources. The dashboard for generating awareness is unique in its kind and, also serves as a forerunner in establishing a demand for urban waste heat recovery amongst different stakeholders like cities and end-users alike.
The handbook generated in the project summarizes unique and new information on urban waste heat potential, business aspects and demonstration in one place. The handbook itself is a guideline for extending the state of the art further.ReUseHeat has increased the overall urban waste heat awareness, skills and capabilities of district heating practitioners, owners of urban waste heat, customers, policy makers and investors in the field of green energy.
In terms of key performance measures, the project has realized 3.9 GWh or primary energy savings during its lifetime reflecting 1 GWh of primary energy per invested million of €.