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If you are thinking of purchasing a renewable heating system not only for your own house, but for a multi-apartment building, the process is easier if you can assess in advance whether the purchase is worthwhile. REPLACE partner SDEWES developed a techno-economic study for a representative building in the KaGoP region that showed promising results.
One of the REPLACE model cases of best practice in Slovenia is the holistic energy renovation of a row house of the Županič family in Ljubljana. As envisaged in the REPLACE project, the family installed a climate-friendly heating system, while at the same time reducing their energy consumption through renovation measures. The house is located in a densely populated area in Ljubljana. And before the actual implementation of the works, the investor went through all the necessary steps as described in the REPLACE handbooks.
In order to replace fossil fuels with renewable energies, the Spanish REPLACE partners EREN and Escan promote the use of biomass in buildings and homes. And to thereby save a particularly large amount of CO2 emissions and support Europe to become climate-neutral by 2050, the REPLACE partners have focused on a particularly rewarding region in Spain.
In the City of Zagreb and in the border counties of Zagreb, Krapina-Zagorje County and Karlovac, REPLACE project partner REGEA has championed the changeover to climate friendly heating and cooling in many ways:
In the EU-funded heating exchange project REPLACE, Energiewende Oberland, together with the region’s climate protection managers, has designed an award for all those in the Oberland who already heat 100% with renewable energies. It is intended to honour those who are already acting in a climate-friendly way when it comes to heating, and to motivate others to follow suit.
The “100% renewable heating” label is awarded by Energiewende Oberland or the climate protection managers concerned.
On Saturday, 11 June 2022, Maschinenring Wolfratshausen invited guests to Egling to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and the REPLACE heating transition project was also represented with its own info booth. The association with 1,200 members takes care of the machinery side of energy wood processing. With solidarity in mind, the members of the ring buy special machines, use them together and support each other.
At the anniversary event, Andreas Scharli from Energiewende Oberland gave advice at the REPLACE info booth to members of the machinery ring who operate heating networks themselves. “People who have already been operating heating networks for 10 or 15 years are currently overrun with enquiries. Customers want to become independent of imported oil and gas and switch to renewable energies from the region,” says energy consultant Andreas Scharli. Scharli supported the expert audience at the event with information on the expansion and economic operation of their grids.
The EU-funded heating transition project REPLACE aims to motivate citizens to exchange their old and inefficient heating systems and to switch to climate-friendly technologies. The project also targets professionals who advise on, plan and implement heating exchanges, as well as public authorities and investors.
On Thursday, June 16, 2022, an online summit entitled “Are we ready for a sustainable and efficient supply of thermal energy with less impact on the environment and climate?“ was held.
The summit brought together over 70 participants representing ministries, policy makers, financial institutions, NGOs, professionals, designers, investors and other relevant stakeholders in the heating sector.
At the beginning of June, Enova team had the opportunity to participate in two workshops held on June 9 in Zenica and June 10 in Travnik, entitled “Opportunities for the development of the concept of smart grids in the energy sector of the Region – Zenica-Doboj and Central Bosnia Canton.”
The main goal of the workshop was to provide guidelines for stakeholders on the efficient and sustainable development of the power system in terms of decentralization, digitalization, decarbonization, and democratization by introducing the concept of a “smart grid” by strengthening the capacity of key energy sector actors to implement smart energy management with the aim of achieving environmental, economic, and social benefits.
The heating matrix shows which heating systems are best suited for which houses. The heating calculator determines annual costs and helps to find the best solution for a house.
“Energy prices have risen as much in the past two years as they last did during the oil crisis in 1973. This poses problems for many households, because heating with oil, natural gas or coal in particular has become expensive,” says Herbert Tretter, who coordinates the EU project REPLACE. To escape the “heating cost trap”, it therefore makes sense to replace old, inefficient and mostly climate-damaging heating systems. “Those who heat with oil, natural gas or coal not only pay a lot of money. These outdated heating systems are also among the most climate-damaging of all available technologies in space heating,” Tretter continues. To make it easier to switch to a new, climate-friendly heating system, two independent, free online tools are available in nine languages as part of the EU project REPLACE.
Continue reading “Expensive energy makes heating a cost trap: free tools help with heating replacement – Press release”The REPLACE project is moving forward as planned. And as the project meeting on 30 June 2022 showed, a large number of the planned tools and activities have already been implemented to motivate people in the project regions to switch to renewable heating and cooling systems and save energy.
Among other things, all REPLACE training seminars, including some follow-up trainings, have already been implemented. Professionals in North Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Slovenia received information on how to exchange heating systems in a climate-friendly way and how to support customers in saving energy. In Slovenia, another training is planned for September 2022.
Another topic was the implementation of collective actions that reach a particularly large number of customers at the same time. In addition to local heating networks in Germany or a biomass logistic hub in Spain, the partner in Northern Macedonia is planning to launch the joint purchase of inverter heat pumps and PV in a group of flats with the help of a pre-feasibility study. In Austria, for the first time a web-based one-stop-shop was developed and since mid-July facilitates a simple switch from fossil fueled systems to renewable-based and district heating systems.
Finally, the current high energy prices were also a topic of the meeting. On the one hand, they increase the desire for energy self-sufficiency, for example through heat pumps and solar thermal energy. At the same time, the rise in prices can also make the switch more difficult, as for example the partners from Bosnia and Bulgaria reported, where the rise in the price of pellets is slowing down the climate-friendly exchange of heating systems. Other countries are also facing similar challenges. In both cases, REPLACE tools and activities help to steer the efforts of heating system replacement in a more sustainable direction.
