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.
