The second REPLACE consortium meeting took place 19th – 20th May 2020. Originally planned to proceed in one of the project’s partner regions, the Bavarian Oberland in Germany, due to Covid19 the venue was changed into a virtual, but nonetheless fruitful collaboration. Besides the 12 project partners, the team this time could welcome three advisory board members:

Gerhard Löffler from the Office of the Salzburg State Government and head of the Division for Energy Economics & Energy Advice. Horia Petran, senior research scientist and coordinator of the Romanian Building Knowledge Hub, within the National Institute for Research and Development in Construction „URBAN–INCERC”. And Øyvind Skreiberg from Norway, Chief Scientist of Stationary Bioenergy in SINTEF.

The REPLACE team could profit from the board members’ advice to their work in progress and the meeting’s central topics such as research on the framework conditions for the decarbonization of the heating and cooling sector, research on perceptions, interests and needs of the REPLACE target groups, the developement of instruments for replacement campaigns such as the heating system matrix, guidelines for consumers, intermediaries and investors, and the collection of best practice examples. Another key issue was the formation of local working groups in each project region, where they are going to support the preparation and steering of the regional replacement campaigns.