On 14 February 2022, the consortium meeting of the REPLACE project took place and gave an impressive overview of how people in the nine target regions in Western, Central and South-Eastern Europe can currently benefit from the heating system replacement actions.
In April, the Austrian one-stop-shop for boiler and oven replacements is going live, an offer organized by the Austrian Energy Agency. From then on, end consumers can use a new internet platform of the pilot initiative, first in the province of Salzburg, to select a provider in their vicinity. The provider, among other things, undertakes to install climate-friendly heating systems and to take the old boiler with them, carries out heating checks to save energy and provides a mobile heating container in the event of a heating system failure, thus creating time for the exchange.
In Canton Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, project partner enova has already been able to award 12 labels to households that heat their buildings with 100% renewable energy. In order to motivate even more people to operate their heating systems in a climate-friendly way, enova organised a large media campaign, reaching Sarajevo Canton and beyond via social media, the press and interviews on radio and television. The ten municipal info hub days have been a great success, attracting more than 200 interested consumers to get information.
In Bulgaria, REPLACE project partner BSERC was directly involved in increasing the subsidy for renewable heating systems at the national level, sevenfold to 70 mio. Euro. To ensure that end consumers are equipped with climate-friendly pellets for the coming winter, BSERC is organising a joint purchase in two municipalities in the summer of 2022, which will also have a positive effect on the price.
In Croatia, the partner REGEA helped 100 end consumers in North West Croatia to receive subsidies for a climate-friendly heating system replacement and thus to buy heating systems, solar thermal systems and heat pumps. At the same time, 30 future heating engineers were able to take part in a guided tour of an innovative demo centre for energy efficiency and renewable energy, getting to know climate-friendly technology at first hand. In spring 2022, partner EIHP will offer open house events and field trips to best practice examples, where interested parties can learn about already implemented heating systems in the Primorsko-Goranska County region.
In the Bavarian Oberland in Germany, heating networks play a major role. In the Oberland, interested people can visit the local heating networks of farmers that supply themselves and their neighbours with heat. Or the networks of municipalities that open their doors to imitators. At EWO’s information day on the topic of heating networks and for future heat suppliers, practitioners will have their say and pass on their knowledge and experience to interested parties.
In North Macedonia, end customers can already obtain information on sustainable heating at info hubs in the KAGoP region. In the municipalities, project partner SDEWES-Skopje provides materials such as hanbooks and technology sheets, and trains employees who can pass on knowledge. A virtual info hub complements the offer beyond the region. In two webinars, SDEWES-Skopje also passed on knowledge to a total of 50 participants from municipalities, politics, professionals and end customers. Another webinar is planned for spring 2022 In early October, 2021 within the “Labelling 100% RHC campaign” KAGoP region initiated a call and published it on the municipal websites, so that citizens who own 100% renewable heating and cooling systems can apply and be awarded with the green sticker. The response was really satisfying, as almost 80 citizens were interested and willing to represent an example for environmentally aware end-users.
In Spain, project partners EREN and ESCAN organised a workshop for professionals. Here, 41 participants learned more about climate-friendly heating – knowledge that they can now pass on to their customers. The project partners made more knowledge about biomass directly available to end customers: 200 houses and 200 boilers are getting an information label. 10 info hubs have been established. A new subsidy scheme developed by EREN is helping to switch a total of 10 MW of residential boiler capacity from fossil fuels to biomass within some months. And four videos deal with heating with biomass in a single-family house, in an apartment building, a private and a public heating network instead of using fossil fuels.
In Slovenia, through the efforts of project partner Jožef Stefan Institute, everyone who wants to apply for a subsidy for climate-friendly heating automatically benefits from the REPLACE Calculator. This is because the office that awards the subsidy advises applicants to calculate their project in advance using the heating calculator, receiving information on suitable climate-friendly heating systems for their situation for their funding application. A further 75 intermediaries use the Replace Calculator as a white-label-tool for their business. And in a collective action 134 oil boilers could be replaced by heat pumps, while the target was set to 100 oil boilers.
The REPLACE campaigns take place in 9 project regions until August 2022. Find out from the project partners what is planned in your region until then.