Two new projects to support heat planning in the EU
Two new EU supported projects are going to develop tools for planning of heating and cooling. Aalborg University, who is leading both the 4DH Research Centre and the Heat Roadmap Europe project, is involved in both projects.
The project HotMaps aims at designing a toolbox to support public authorities, energy agencies and urban planners in strategic heating and cooling planning on local, regional and national levels, and in line with EU policies.
In addition to guidelines and handbooks on how to carry out strategic heating and cooling (H&C) planning, HotMaps will provide the first H&C planning software that is:
• User-driven: developed in close collaboration with 7 European pilot areas
• Open source: the developed tool and all related modules will run without requiring any other commercial tool or software. No restrictions in use and access to the source code.
• EU-28 compatible: the tool will be applicable for cities in all 28 EU Member States
The Hot Maps software tool will be developed in close cooperation with the target group, i.e. urban planners and strategic decision-makers as well as with members from the open source community. The pilot areas of Aalborg, Bistrita, Frankfurt, Geneva, Milton Keynes, Kerry County and San Sebastian will co-design, test and validate in order to guarantee for a user-friendly software entirely based on user needs.
Encourage planning of DH networks
The THERMOS project aims to accelerate the development of low-carbon district energy networks in Europe.
It will do this by providing local authorities and other bodies with dramatically improved methodology, tools and data to streamline the planning process for district heating systems.
To achieve this, the THERMOS project objectives are to:
• Develop and publish a state-of-the-art methodology for developing address-level energy system maps.
• Produce a set of such maps for a series of Pilot City authorities (Islington, Warsaw, Jelgava and Granollers) with national coverage where data layers allow.
• Create and publish modelling algorithms for analysing these maps to answer a range of questions required for thermal energy system planning by city, region and national stakeholders.
• Develop and publish free, open-source software tailored to the specific needs of different Pilot City stakeholders.
• Work closely with energy planning stakeholders to support the use of the new tools in real-world energy planning.
• Support the implementation of the energy system mapping methodology, and subsequently the use of the software, with a further four Replication Cities/Regions, from three more EU Member States.
• Engage in a wider programme of dissemination and communication to maximise the impacts of the project outputs, during and beyond the lifetime of the project itself.
Martin Holley from Centre for Sustainable Energy in the UK is managing the project. "Currently, the processes associated with building and upgrading thermal networks are excessively drawn out due to repeated analyses, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies of different options and routes - a kind of reinvention of the wheel everytime someone proposes a district heating network."
"If we do our job well, THERMOS will provide public authorities and other agencies with energy-system mapping methodologies, software and associated modelling tools that enable them to develop, expand and upgrade district heating and cooling systems far more efficiently and cost effectively than they do now. This approach will massively reduce planning costs."
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