The supply of heat through district energy systems is a common technology used by local municipalities across Europe, but far from all are efficient and many of the local actors’ struggle with the challenge of transforming these systems into efficient systems. Polish district heating needs modernisation, important to improve air quality and reach the European climate goals.
How could municipality district heating systems be upgraded, and what are the benefits compared with other heating sources traditionally used in Poland? What are the available financing options and existing support programmes?

The workshop focused on answering these questions and presented best-practice local and international examples and business models, to learn about effective solutions from other countries which could be implemented in Poland. This workshop was organised in the framework of the EU-funded Heat Roadmap Europe project in cooperation with Forum Energii within its framework of the “Clean Heat” project. Heat Roadmap Europe 4 is a Horizon 2020 funded research project, with a consortium of 23 partners and will be running from 2016 until 2019. Its main goal is to study the heating and cooling sector in Europe by quantifying the effects of increased energy efficiency on both the demand and supply side, in terms of energy consumption, environmental impacts and costs. The overall aim in HRE4 is to develop low-carbon heating and cooling strategies, which are called Heat Roadmaps, and subsequently to quantify the impact of implementing them at a national level for 14 EU Member States.

Please find below, in the download box, the following presentations.

• Setting the scene – Heating in the European legislation, Maarten De Groote – BPIE
• Heat Roadmap Europe: from scientific findings to a Pan-European Thermal Atlas (Peta4), Rasmus Lund – Aalborg University Denmark (AAU)
• Poland’s heating country profile: breaking down the context for recommendations, George Stiff – ICLEI Europe
• Challenges and opportunities for Polish District Heating Systems, Andrzej Rubczyński – Forum Energii
• “Vienna, 2017 Heat Pump city of the year” and other examples, Thomas Nowak – EHPA
• Transformation strategy for Chemnitz towards a sustainable, affordable and resilient DH system, Susanne Ochse – GEF
• Business models for Eastern Europe and financing for smaller scale District Heating, Celia Martinez Juez – UNEP Global District Energy in Cities Initiative