Research and Innovation Roadmap points the way for Renewable Heating and Cooling

Re­search and in­no­va­tion is vital for the de­vel­op­ment of Re­new­able Heat­ing and Cool­ing tech­nolo­gies and their ur­gently needed mar­ket de­ploy­ment. This is a key mes­sage of the re­cently pub­lished Com­mon Im­ple­men­ta­tion Roadmap of the Eu­ro­pean Tech­nol­ogy Plat­form on Re­new­able Heat­ing and Cool­ing (RHC-Plat­form). This Roadmap de­scribes the top pri­or­ity re­search themes and value chains with the high­est im­pact on the so­ci­etal chal­lenges in Eu­rope up to 2020. It in­te­grates top­ics from the Solar Ther­mal, Bio­mass, Ge­ot­her­mal and Cross Cut­ting sec­tors, in­clud­ing dis­trict heat­ing, heat pumps and stor­age tech­nolo­gies.

“With our roadmap, the in­dus­try and re­search sec­tors, as well as politi­cians, now have a clear guide­line for which re­search top­ics should be fo­cused on in the com­ing years”, says Ger­hard Stryi-Hipp, pres­i­dent of the RHC-Plat­form. “We now ex­pect that the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion will put a stronger focus on RHC tech­nolo­gies within the Hori­zon 2020 pro­gram, es­pe­cially since RHC tech­nolo­gies are nec­es­sary to re­duce our im­port de­pen­dency on fos­sil fuels”.

Fol­low­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of the Strate­gic Re­search and In­no­va­tion Agenda for Re­new­able Heat­ing and Cool­ing (SRIA) in 2013, the Im­ple­men­ta­tion Roadmap was de­vel­oped by the RHC-Plat­form, based on the more de­tailed Roadmaps of its Solar Ther­mal, Bio­mass, Ge­ot­her­mal, and Cross-Cut­ting pan­els. Lead­ing Eu­ro­pean ex­perts from all sec­tors were in­volved in the pub­li­ca­tion of the doc­u­ment which, for the first time, gives a com­pre­hen­sive overview of the tech­no­log­i­cal po­ten­tial of the whole sec­tor.

Founded in 2008 and of­fi­cially sup­ported by the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, the RHC-Plat­form today rep­re­sents 800 RHC sec­tor stake­hold­ers from in­dus­try, re­search and the pub­lic sec­tor from all over Eu­rope, cov­er­ing all re­new­able en­ergy tech­nolo­gies for Heat­ing and Cool­ing. The RHC-Plat­form is a model of mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nar­ity in which the in­te­gra­tion of all RHC sources en­ables sys­temic so­lu­tions, and syn­ergy ef­fects are achieved with co­op­er­a­tion through cross cut­ting tech­nolo­gies.

The Roadmap iden­ti­fies the tech­nolo­gies which ought to be de­vel­oped as a pri­or­ity. It ex­plores the re­la­tion­ship be­tween these dif­fer­ent Re­search & In­no­va­tion pri­or­i­ties and ex­plains how RHC re­search ad­dresses the needs of the dif­fer­ent users and de­mand pro­files that exist in the EU. The doc­u­ment in­ves­ti­gates the RHC con­tri­bu­tion to the se­cu­rity of our en­ergy sup­ply, to a more cost com­pet­i­tive and less price-volatile en­ergy mar­ket, to job cre­ation, and to the re­duc­tion in the emis­sion of pol­lu­tants. Fi­nally, it analy­ses how to in­crease the in­volve­ment of pri­vate in­vestors and how to strengthen the mar­ket de­ploy­ment pol­icy for RHC tech­nolo­gies.

The Com­mon Im­ple­men­ta­tion Roadmap is the lat­est in an in­flu­en­tial se­ries of pub­li­ca­tions pro­duced by the RHC-Plat­form. Hav­ing iden­ti­fied the huge mar­ket po­ten­tial of RHC tech­nolo­gies in the Com­mon Vi­sion doc­u­ment pub­lished in 2011, the Strate­gic Re­search Pri­or­i­ties were elab­o­rated by each tech­nol­ogy in 2012 which led to the pub­li­ca­tion of a Strate­gic Re­search and In­no­va­tion Agenda of the RHC-Plat­form in 2013. This work was sup­ported by the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion and was co­or­di­nated by the RHC-Plat­form sec­re­tariat, which is made up of the as­so­ci­a­tions of the RHC tech­nolo­gies, namely the As­so­ci­a­tion of Eu­ro­pean Re­new­able En­ergy Re­search Cen­tres (EUREC, Co­or­di­na­tor of the Plat­form), the Eu­ro­pean Bio­mass As­so­ci­a­tion (AE­BIOM), the Eu­ro­pean Solar Ther­mal In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion (ESTIF), and the Eu­ro­pean Ge­ot­her­mal En­ergy Coun­cil (EGEC).

All doc­u­ments can be down­loaded at http://​www.​rhc-platform.​org/​publications/

Source : The European Technology Platform on Renewable Heating and Cooling

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Download "Common Implementation Roadmap for Renewable Heating and Cooling Technologies" [PDF - 3.1 MB]