First Program Cooperation Scoping Workshop: focus area on renewable heating and cooling

 

The morning session, moderated by Ludwig Karg from JPP SES, aimed to motivate countries to organise participation in a heating and cooling activity, a possible joint call in 2021. The warm welcome was given by two inspiring figures from geothermal and smart energy systems worlds: Guðni A. Jóhannesson, Coordinator of ERA-Net GEOTHERMICA and Fredrik Lundström, JPP SES Co-chair. 

The keynote presentation by Javier Urchueguía, Chair of European Technology Information Platform (ETIP) for Renewable Heating and Cooling (RHC) showcased their accomplishments on "Research and innovation challenges in Renewable Heating and Cooling", followed by five diverse representatives of IEA Technology Collaboration Programmes on district heating, heat pumping technologies, solar heating and cooling, and energy conservation and energy storage, who commonly agreed that joint efforts in the field of heating and cooling groups is essential now for further success in sustainable development.

By the end of morning session, Costanza Saletti and Mirko Morini presented a fascinating study on the status of the heating and cooling networks R&I within Horizon 2020. They stated that key drivers for future innovation in Heating and Cooling lies in digitalization, integration, decarbonization and resilience. The session was wrapped up by motivating pitches from innovative projects supported by the two ERA-Net communities. Jakob Worm presented a pitch from HEATflex, Holger Cremer from HEATSTORE, Anna Nils-son from Flexi-Sync and Herman Eijdems from Minewater. 

 

GEOTHERMICA and ERA-Net SES Teams inviting to join the journey 

The afternoon session was moderated by Paul Ramsak, the co-leader on knowledge, strategy and support in GEOTHERMICA. This session was restricted to national and regional Programme Owners and Program Managers and was well attended, with more than 50 participants. The session contained a spotlight presentation of four lead interested countries Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain and Germany. To engage the plenary discussion among other European program owners and building the way forward, attendees were participating in live-streamed polls to foresee the attitude of the national and regional rep-resentatives. The afternoon session was closed by a presentation of "Joint call on Heating and Cooling – Way Forward" led by GEOTHERMICA Office.

Accelerating energy technology innovation is crucial to meet energy and climate goals, to support eco-nomic growth, and to enhance energy security. As Paul Ramsak mentioned, he is dreaming of living in a world with no fossil fuels use, but the use of natural resources which can provide all cooling and heating needs sustainably. This should be not only possible in Iceland, but also in other European countries and worldwide. To achieve it, we need creativity, energy, and joint effort. The meeting successfully promoted the mission and positively engaged participants to get on board move forward in this endeavour.

 

If you, as a funding organisation, wish to join this exciting new community drop us a line at office@eranet-smartenergysystems.eu.  

 

Speaker presentations can be accessed here.