Key Issues for Renewable Heat in Europe

Duration: 2005 – 2007 ● Client: European Commission (IEE) ● WIP Role: Market uptake

In recent years, the EU has put considerable effort in creating a favourable legal framework for renewable energy sources. However, RES heating and cooling (RES-H) has received less political attention than renewable electricity and biofuels.

This project analysed public policies supporting RES-H, identified best practices and developed concrete guidelines applicable at local, regional, national and European level.

The outcome was a comprehensive Action Plan for RES-H in Europe. The project addressed the following 5 key issues:

• Verifiable targets and statistics for RES-H
• Quantifying the energy delivery of individual RES-H installations
• Regulations at a local, regional, national and European level
• Financial incentives
• Innovative RES-H applications

For the first time, these 5 key issues were studied not only for a single technology but for RES-H as a whole. The role of WIP was to serve as a moderator between the specific RES-H technologies. WIP elaborated the joint research platform and compiled the results of all technology sectors in one comprehensive document.

Partners of the K4RES-H projects were WIP, ESTIF, AEBIOM, EGEC, EREC, EC-JRC, BEA, Energie 2000 and IDAE. The project was supported by the European Commission Intelligent Energy Europe programme.