PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
The project aims to accelerate the energy transition and decarbonization of district heating (DH) in four targeted Eastern European countries through the integration of low-grade heat sources in high-temperature DH networks. The overall concept is to trigger tangible investment projects through the direct involvement of DH companies and relevant stakeholders in a collaborative planning process, which aims at sharing ideas and joint development of replicable model investment projects. The project will also feature a significant transfer of knowledge from numerous previous EU and national projects and the mobilization of stakeholders. It includes tailored activities focusing on filling knowledge gaps, developing necessary skills and competences, stakeholder outreach, as well as extensive communication, dissemination and exploitation. Project partners and key stakeholders will collaboratively develop technical and non-technical solutions for follower DH companies and the sector. The project will directly support four DH companies, which operate high-temperature DH systems, in preparation of investment plans to fulfill the revised criteria for ‘efficient district heating and cooling’ defined in the Energy Efficiency Directive for the period from 2026 to 2035, and pave the way for further developments. The number of DH systems directly involved in the project (owned by project consortium partners) is 20. The project will also indirectly support other external companies by delivering outputs such as examples of scalable and replicable solutions, and model investment projects. In particular, the project will focus on a significant reduction in the share of fossil fuel and biomass combustion processes in heat production. It will also assess possibilities for establishing local ecosystems of DH companies in the future energy market. There will be taken into consideration the scenario of supporting by DH companies the development of energy storage and sector integration.