The heating and cooling sector has a central role in the energy transition and decarbonisation of the energy system. Each year, almost 50% of the final energy consumed in Europe is used for heating, cooling or refrigeration either for residential, tertiary or industrial purposes. The majority (around 75%) of this energy demand is met by the combustion of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal – damaging the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution – while only 19% is generated from renewable energy. Today the social, environmental and economic costs of climate change make the mission of embracing more sustainable sources of energy urgent. Recognising this situation, the European Technology and Innovation Platform on Renewable Heating and Cooling (RHC-ETIP) aims at playing a decisive role in protecting Europe’s leading position in renewable heating and cooling (RHC) technology. It is focused on increasing RHC contributions in energy systems to benefit society and reach the vital goal of a carbon-neutral world by 2050.
RHC-ETIP, officially launched in 2010, today brings together more than 1000 European stakeholders representing all renewable energy technologies for heating and cooling from industry, research, and the public sector. RHC-ETIP uniquely brings together stakeholders from all over Europe from multiple sectors: biomass, geothermal, solar thermal, heat pumps, district heating and cooling, thermal storage and hybrid systems. Since its launch, RHC-ETIP has been instrumental in raising the profile of the RHC sector by publishing a set of common documents, which have defined the sector’s strategic research directions, and project ideas to increase the share of renewable energy in the heating and cooling sector.
The RHC-ETIP Secretariat (SecRHC-ETIP), which was first set up in 2011, aims to assist relevant stakeholders in coordinating activities related to defining and implementing an innovation strategy to increase the use of renewable energy sources for heating and cooling and to foster the growth and market uptake of relevant industries. In order to coordinate between a large number of different stakeholders from competing sectors and technologies, the secretariat is composed of sectoral associations to ensure the active involvement of each industry; SecRHC-ETIP is led by EUREC, a research association covering all types of renewable energy technologies. This configuration ensures a broad representation of the different RHC stakeholders.
The SecRHC-ETIP was established to support the achievement of the following goals:
1. Strengthen the RHC sector to foster the decarbonisation of the energy system
2. Support the SET-Plan Implementation Plans
3. Support the competitiveness of the RHC-industry
