Category: News (EN)

The Spanish REPLACE team is now launching the campaign to replace old fossil fuel residential sector heating systems by biomass in Castilla y León. The focus lies on the REPLACE label for boilers and homes (100% biomass), information hubs and several training and communication actions in Expobiomasa in Valladolid in September 2021.

The past year has been full of challenges and impacted the working manner, thus limiting the opportunity for key stakeholders networking. In order to get collaborators, partners and prominent representatives from different energy sectors familiar with each other and to the REPLACE project, but also due to facilitated COVID-19 measures, we did not want to exclude the opportunity to organize an onsite event where participants can face to face exchange experiences and be up to date with the state-of the-art sustainable heating and cooling systems. 

The REPLACE your Heating System Calculator will be available in 9 languages, including in English. End consumers, intermediaries and investors can calculate their replacement projects beforehand, estimating replacements towards renewable energy systems or district heating based systems for existing houses. And it is planned as a white-label tool: Intermediaries, suppliers and others interested can place the calculator on their own websites and can use the tool profitably for their businesses.

In order to put the finishing touches on the tool, REPLACE’s international project team met for a webinar on the 15^thJune. Features and functions were presented by the Austrian Energy Agency’s team like the fact that not only single-family houses, but also buildings up to 1,500 m² block of flats can be calculated, the easy-to-use end consumer mode which is added by an in-depth expert mode, or results that are shown graphically in four different ways.

On June 15, 2021, as part of the REPLACE project campaigns, the first of three webinars was organized on the topic: Overview of sustainable technologies and examples of good practices for replacement of heating and cooling systems. The webinar was realized via the ZOOM platform and attended by about 20 participants, including representatives of the municipalities, the local working group, non-governmental organizations, the energy agency, private companies in the field of engineering, planning and environment.

On May 18, 2021, as part of the campaigns of the REPLACE project, the Info Hub in the municipality of Gjorce Petrov was officially introduced to the citizens. SDEWES-Skopje in cooperation with representatives of the Energy Efficiency Sector in the municipality made this corner available to all interested parties and will assist with the initiatives to replace the existing inefficient heating and cooling system with environmentally friendly solutions.

On May 17, 2021, the Macedonian section of the International Center for Energy, Water and Environmental Systems (SDEWES-Skopje) in cooperation with the Association of Local Self-Government Units organized an Energy Summit via the ZOOM platform. The event was attended by 48 stakeholders, representatives of municipalities across the country, the NGO sector, experts, etc. The aim of the Energy Summit was to encourage the development of political will to act in the direction of the European Green Deal for the implementation of new projects for sustainable heating and cooling through knowledge exchange and dialogue between key stakeholders. 

REPLACE’s consortium meeting in April has shown: After a phase of intense preparatory work, sustainable heating and cooling actions are ready for take-off in 10 European regions!

Best practice examples are ready for use, where interested parties can look at what others have already implemented in terms of renewable heating and cooling. The Replacement handbook for end consumers is also available – and the one for intermediaries and investors as good as ready – presenting e.g. the benefits of sustainable systems, systems to choose from and answers to frequently asked questions. And the REPLACE matrices and the REPLACE your Heating System Calculator are nearing completion. From July onwards, the online tools will enable people to see at a glance which sustainable system is best suited for their building and to calculate replacement projects e.g. in terms of CO2 savings and costs. 

In order to increase the usage of bioenergy through an (at least partial) fuel-switch from coal, oil or natural gas, the Bioenergy4Business project, among others, provides information to current and potential operators of solid biomass plants regarding the configuration of biomass delivery contracts.

In order to increase the usage of bioenergy through an (at least partial) fuel-switch from coal, oil or natural gas, the project Bioenergy4Business has, among others, compiled the most common business models and financing options for bioenergy heating installations. The fuels addressed are used in “in-house” boilers in commercial sectors for heat purposes or in district heating (DH), to solid biomass sources. 

Due to a rising demand in wood fuel, the knowledge of the energy content of customary wood fuel assortments has been gaining in importance in wood fuel trade.

In order to facilitate the conversion from prices per volume or weight unit commonly used in forestry and the timber industry to energy prices relevant in the context of energy production, the Austrian Energy Agency has compiled an easy-to-use calculation tool. With only a few required variables the program can quickly calculate the most important parameters for a variety of wood fuel assortments.