ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems: Flexible Heating and Cooling Systems

Flexible Heating and Cooling Systems

Heating and cooling systems enable local integration of different sources at different temperature levels, including unused recoverable energy.

Selected RegSys projects develop and implement local heating and cooling systems, including district heating, which

integrate heat pumps and heat storage technologies
rely on local energy sources (e.g. bio energy, solar thermal and geothermal energy, natural cooling sources, flexible CHP production) and
recover heat from other processes (e.g. industry, data centres, cogeneration with cooling and waste water facilities, excess of energy from wind and solar electricity production).

These systems will be able to cope with high levels of decentralised energy supply and interact with future low-energy buildings, utilising synergies and economic energy-efficient solutions. Furthermore, they shall deliver differentiated thermal services (heat, steam, cold, etc.) with optimised primary energy efficiency and contribute significantly to the decarbonisation of the heating and cooling sector which represents more than 50% of the EU final energy consumption.