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Europe turns up the heat on old boilers

In an interview with FORESIGHT, Dominique Ristori, Director General for Energy in the European Commission, explains why Europe’s heating system is too old and dirty

Heating and cooling represent over half of EU energy consumption, more than 500 million tonnes of oil equivalent each year. Two-thirds is supplied by fossil fuels. The sector also accounts for 68% of gas imports. Dominique Ristori, Director General for Energy in the European Commission, the EU executive body, explains how Europe is working to decarbonise

Q:
What is the problem? A:
Heating systems in homes and industries are frequently too old and beyond their technical lifetime. Almost half of buildings in the EU have individual boilers installed before 1992, with efficiency of 60% or less. Today efficiency rates are over 90%. These boilers need to be changed or modernised. Q:
How will the Commission change this? A:
In 2016, we adopted the first EU heating and cooling strategy for buildings and industry. The residential sector represents 45% of heating and cooling use, and industry 37%. This strategy was followed by the recently adopted Clean Energy for All Europeans package, establishing the most advanced regulatory framework in the world to accelerate the clean energy transition. This includes a revised Renewable Energy Directive setting, for the first time, goals and targeted measures for heating and cooling. Between 2021 and 2030, member states are required to increase the share of renewables in the sector each year by an average 1.3 percentage points. A target of one percentage point is agreed for district heating and cooling, which supplies more than 10% of Europe’s heat demands. Another part of the package is the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which facilitates the integration of renewables in buildings by accelerating renovation rates. Heating and cooling make up to 60-80% of the energy consumed in buildings. The revised Energy Efficiency Directive will also drive more efficient heating and cooling consumption.

Heat pumps grew fivefold over the last decade and now supply 10% of renewable heat production — in Sweden their market share is over 40%

Q:
Do we have the technology to decarbonise? A:
There is already a wide range of proven technologies for renewable and sustainable heating and cooling that are commercially viable and competitive. But they only provide 19% of needs, uptake is slow and there is significant room for improvement. Biomass leads with an 80% share of the market. Heat pumps grew fivefold over the last decade and now supply 10% of renewable heat production — in Sweden their market share is over 40%. And there is a need to develop new technologies. Different geographies, conditions and heating needs will require different solutions. Heat cannot be transported further than 60 to 100 kilometres and is not a uniform product. EU research and demonstration activities are revealing the potential of fuel cells, high-efficiency cogeneration, thermal storage, low-temperature smart district heating, biogas and bio liquid technologies, e-fuels, 100% solar thermal houses, industrial solar thermal applications and innovative geothermal heating.
Q:
Why is change so slow? A:
There is a lack of awareness about available solutions among consumers, businesses and public authorities, and a lack of sufficiently trained professionals to spread these technologies. The scarcity of skilled installers, builders and architects has long been identified as one of the key barriers for the take-up of renewable heating technologies and energy efficiency in buildings. The EU-supported Build Up initiative helps retrain construction sector workers to better understand energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. The Erasmus+ programme publishes regular calls for training and education projects to help ensure the skills needed in the green energy sector are more widely available. It is important the heating and cooling sector seizes such opportunities. Gaps in the availability of statistical information make it difficult to model and analyse the sector, hindering policy development. Heating and cooling consumption is not directly reported in energy statistics. Energy consumption for heating needs to be calculated or modelled from data related to fuels, coal, biomass, natural gas, electricity and municipal waste, and from technology stock, building data and other statistics. The reporting of cooling at EU level is entirely missing and hidden behind electricity consumption data. We are trying to rectify this and in 2016 published the first ever full data series for heating and cooling providing primary and final energy consumption data. The EU Horizon 2020 research programme supports the Heat Roadmap Europe project, aimed at mapping the heating and cooling sector and developing low-carbon strategies for 14 member states.

Half of the heating systems in our homes and industries will need to be changed in the next five to ten years. Effective decarbonisation and modernisation requires clear strategies, plans and projects. It is a matter of political will and dedication to achieve results

Q:
How do we finance this? A:
The Clean Energy for All Europeans package contains measures to facilitate access to financing to accelerate energy innovation and the clean energy transition in buildings. The Smart Financing for Smart Buildings initiative aims at a more effective use of public funding. The Commission is now working with member states and the finance sector to develop sustainable energy financing models and financing platforms for energy efficiency and renewable energy, to de-risk financing and provide project development assistance. Proposals for the EU Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021-2027 extend and expand financing initiatives beyond 2020 and scale up funding for clean energy. Twenty-five per cent of this budget should be spent on climate objectives, including the clean energy transition, compared to the current 20%. Other EU funds will support sustainable infrastructure, including heat networks, and help build capacity to decarbonise the heating and cooling sectors. Q:
What is the role of national and local authorities? A:
Half of the heating systems in our homes and industries will need to be changed in the next five to ten years. Effective decarbonisation and modernisation requires clear strategies, plans and projects. It is a matter of political will and dedication to achieve results. Local and regional authorities have significant potential to develop heating and cooling strategies with renewable and other sustainable energy solutions backed by EU research programmes, funds and financing instruments. Supporting proven and already cost-competitive renewable heating technologies, such as efficient biomass, solar thermal for at least water heating and heat pumps, and ensuring the planned replacement of old fossil fuel boilers with efficient, renewable-based heating equipment, can be done relatively easily by local, regional and national authorities. Q:
What about standards? A:
Many standards are available for heating technologies, including heat pumps and district heating, and for the energy performance of buildings. Further standardisation work will be necessary to ensure that heating equipment sold on the EU market is as efficient as possible and to reinforce the competitiveness of EU industry globally.
Q:
Do we need a phase out date for oil to speed up an end to fossil fuels? A:
The specific situations of some households should be carefully taken into account. The EU is committed to ensuring that each home is properly heated during the winter. The switch from heating running on oil to systems running on renewable energies may not happen at the same pace everywhere. In rural and mountainous areas there will likely be more scope for keeping heating oil longer and replacing it over time with bio liquids or e-fuels while keeping the same boiler. Q:
What role will gas play?
A:
Considering its lower level of greenhouse gas emissions, natural gas has advantages compared to other fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, which need to be phased out faster. In some member states more than half of heating, in some cases more than 90%, is generated with natural gas. Although a great challenge, switching away from natural gas, can be done gradually over time with well-designed strategies, political will and social consensus. The Netherlands, one of the most gas dependent countries in the EU for heating, has decided to transition away from natural gas. Municipalities, assisted by the government, have put in place a society-wide consultation and coordination process to elaborate cost-effective local strategies and build viable solutions for carbon dioxide free heating. The experience highlights the importance of preserving social fairness. We should not forget that heating is a basic necessity. By 2050, other solutions may enable the replacement of gas such as renewables supplied by individual appliances or via heat networks in buildings. With increasingly better energy performance, buildings require less energy and can be fully heated without the need for high energy density energy such as natural gas. Industrial process heat is a different matter. Natural gas at this stage cannot be easily replaced in high temperature industrial processes. Renewable electricity and e-fuels will most likely replace natural gas or, if natural gas remains, it will be complemented with carbon capture and storage or use. Renewable gas, such as biogas from organic waste, holds significant potential as a flexible and sustainable alternative energy source that can increase security of supply and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the heating and cooling sector. Q:
What about cooling?
A:
Cooling plays a relatively modest role in the EU at around 2% of final energy consumption and 4% of heating and cooling demand, if space and process cooling are taken together. In the residential and industrial sector, space cooling has a negligible share of less than 1% of total energy demand for heating and cooling. In the services sector, this generally amounts to 9-10% of energy consumption, but can be as high a 40%. Cooling demand is expected to grow rapidly in the coming decades because of changing climate conditions, population growth, urbanisation, rising standards of living and the higher demand for thermal comfort, changing architecture as more buildings spring up with glass facades, and industrial transformations such as digitalisation. The growth in cooling will be more significant in hotter Mediterranean countries. In Malta and Cyprus the share of space cooling is already significantly higher than in the rest of Europe, above 25% and 40% of final energy consumption respectively. Overall energy demand in these countries is, however, very low, and cooling will continue to represent a small share of the final energy demand in the EU.

Writer: Philippa Nuttall Jones


This article is part of a series examining how to decarbonise heating and cooling systems