Positioning Positive Energy Districts in European Cities

There are many concepts for buildings with integrated renewable energy systems that have received increased attention during the last few years. However, these concepts only strive to streamline building-level renewable energy solutions. In order to improve the flexibility of decentralized energy generation, individual buildings and energy systems should be able to interact with each other. The positive energy district (PED) concept highlights the importance of active interaction between energy generation systems, energy consumers and energy storage within a district. This paper strives to inform the public, decision makers and fellow researchers about the aspects that should be accounted for when planning and implementing different types of PEDs in different regions throughout the European Union. The renewable energy environment varies between different EU regions, in terms of the available renewable energy sources, energy storage potential, population, energy consumption behaviour, costs and regulations, which affect the design and operation of PEDs, and hence, no PED is like the other. This paper provides clear definitions for different types of PEDs, a survey of the renewable energy market circumstances in the EU and a detailed analysis of factors that play an essential role in the PED planning process

Potential of treated wastewater as an energy source for district heating: incorporating social elements into a multi-factorial comparative assessment for cities.

Recovering waste heat from urban infrastructures is gaining greater importance in the context of decarbonisation. However, evaluating the feasibility of waste heat recovery projects requires a holistic analysis of potential impacts, which includes social elements that are often overlooked. This paper introduces a novel methodology for assessing the competitiveness of waste heat integration into district heating, based on a multi-factorial decision support tool that incorporates energy poverty as a key performance indicator, in addition to energy, environmental and economic factors. The comparative assessment is based on the implementation of large-scale heat pumps recovering wastewater heat, a resource of great potential that is still underutilised in Europe. The methodology is tested in the cities of London and Riga, which are in countries with significantly different stages of DH development. In London, an emerging market with high growth potential, and in Riga, where there is a well-established DH system. The study has shown that waste heat can significantly reduce consumers' bills for heating, which was observed in all analysed scenarios. The social benefit decreases when the replaced technology involves biomass heat-only boilers or combined heat and power. The methodology presented is generic and can be applied to other locations and heat sources

Trends of European research and development in district heating technologies

There is a considerable diversity of district heating (DH) technologies, components and interaction in EU countries. The trends and developments of DH are investigated in this paper. Research of four areas related to DH systems and their interaction with: fossil fuels, renewable energy (RE) sources, energy efficiency of the systems and the impact on the environment and the human health are described in the following content. The key conclusion obtained from this review is that the DH development requires more flexible energy systems with building automations, more significant contribution of RE sources, more dynamic prosumers׳ participation, and integration with mix fuel energy systems, as part of smart energy sustainable systems in smart cities. These are the main issues that Europe has to address in order to establish sustainable DH systems across its countries.This research was conducted in collaboration between Wrocław University of Technology (Poland) and Brunel University London (UK). The support for the Polish team was by the Ministry of Science and HigherEducationunderGrantno.50532

Finland’s Integrated Energy and Climate Plan

Finland's Integrated Energy and Climate Plan contains Finland's national targets and the related policy measures to achieve the EU's 2030 energy and climate targets. The Energy and Climate Plan addresses all five dimensions of the EU Energy Union: decarbonisation, energy efficiency, energy security, internal energy markets and research, innovation and competitiveness. The EU has set Finland a 2030 national target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the non-emissions trading sector by 39 % compared to 2005. At the same time, emissions from the land-use sector should be kept lower than the computational reduction in emissions from sinks. Finland also aims to increase the share of renewable energy to at least 51 % of the final energy use and to 30 % of the final energy use in road transport. With regard to energy efficiency, the target is that the final energy consumption does not exceed 290 TWh. The Finnish Energy and Climate Plan outlines the impact of existing policy measures on the projected evolution of greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy and energy efficiency up to 2040. In addition, the plan describes the effects of the planned policy measures on the energy system, greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, economic development, the environment and public health. The Plan also assesses the impact of planned and existing policy measures on investment

The decarbonisation of the EU heating sector through electrification: a parametric analysis.

In this paper, we examine the electrification of the heating sector as a decarbonisation strategy, discuss its effectiveness, and preliminary assess its impact on the European power system. For this purpose, we perform a complete description of the EU heating sector compliant with official statistics and decompose the EU power demand in different uses to define and assess different levels of heat electrification. We find that heat electrification is an effective decarbonisation option, which can reduce the total energy related emissions by up to 17%, if paired with simultaneous expansion of low-carbon energy. Due to the relative sizes of heat and power demands, we find that most national power systems could cope with higher heat-electrification rates. Specifically, an additional heat pump capacity in the order of 1.1–1.6 TWth can be deployed based on the existing firm power capacity, which would correspond to a heat pump share of 29–45% in space heating. Based on their current power capacity, 12 Member States are prepared for even full electrification scenarios, whereas three Member States could get their power system stressed if 40–60% of all fossil-fuelled technologies are substituted. Flexible electric demand is identified as a key enabler of larger heat electrification shares

Heat Matters: The Missing Link in REPowerEU:2030 District Heating Deployment for a long-term Fossil-free Future

This report employs a Smart Energy System approach to redesign Europe's energy infrastructure, emphasizing the expansion of district heating as a strategic move to eliminate gas-based heating in European buildings. It introduces a novel quantification of waste heat potentials and integrates it with analyses of future potential district heating market shares in Europe. Both in a REPowerEU 2030 and long-term decarbonization temporal perspective. Additionally, it provides a quantification of the investment required in district heating infrastructure to achieve substantial reductions in the EU's natural gas consumption. This report contributes to the ongoing the Heat Roadmap Europe project series