Webinar: Supporting municipalities and cities to draw future-proof heating and cooling plans (Proceedings)

ETIPV-PV with the support of RHC ETIP hosted a webinar on 1 April 2025 titled ‘Supporting municipalities and cities to draw future-proof heating and cooling plans’ (see agenda here).

The recently revised Energy Efficiency Directive (article 25.6) establishes an obligation for municipalities with more than 45.000 inhabitants to create heating and cooling plans. The event explored what local heating and cooling plans could look like and provided recommendations local administrations to draft and implement their own measures. Participants included representatives from local public administration, technology providers and researchers.

Solar Power Europe moderated the event and opened it by highlighting the strategic role that municipalities and cities can have in bringing local stakeholders together to decarbonise the heating and cooling sector.

The European Commission highlighted that municipalities can play a central role in providing information and catalysing the exchange between consumers, suppliers, industries, grid operators and other relevant stakeholders. Local administration is essential to impulse key projects, such as district heating networks, and to reduce administrative barriers. The speaker introduced the obligation on municipalities of at least 45.000 inhabitants to prepare their heating and cooling plans. It estimates that it will cover over 1.300 municipalities, accounting for around 35-40% of the EU population. When it comes to implementation, there is no set deadline for the preparation of local heating and cooling plans, monitoring will be done via the reporting instrument of national climate plans.

The first part of the event had three presentations with experience from the field. The City of Vienna presented its ‘2040 Heating plan’ to decarbonise the thermal sector over the next 15 years. Currently over 600.000 households use natural gas for heating that will be replaced by clean heating and energy efficiency solutions. The strategy differentiates between densely populated areas with district heating, less dense areas with local collective heating and low-density areas with individual heating solutions. It recommends having a clear plan that is flexible and adaptable. The city of Kortrijk mapped recently its energy sources and the potential for energy savings to decarbonise by 2050. The city is considering a combination of clean technologies, including aquathermal energy to meet its heating and cooling demands. Currently it is building an aquathermal pilot via the Interreg project WaterWarmth. Solar Heat Europe presented several case studies of solar thermal and photovoltaic solar thermal systems. Both technologies are readily available, qualify to meet the solar mandate in the buildings directive and can harness a high proportion of the solar irradiation falling on a rooftop or façade.

In the second part of the event, the co-organisers presented technical solutions and recommendations to decarbonise heating and cooling in cities. The Leader of the ETIP PV Grid Integration working group explained that photovoltaic modules (PV) are well suited to provide electricity for cooling in the summer months and to power heat pumps during a good part of the year. Excess summer energy from PV can be stored in geothermal probes to be used for heating in winter. The Chair of RHC ETIP’s group on DHC and thermal storage introduced the SET Plan and the relevant groups working on heating and cooling. The AIT speaker explained that heat demand alone is not enough to determine where to use DH or individual solutions. It is important to base decision-making on economic, ecological, social and regulatory criteria. The project CleanHeatSelector created a framework to take decisions to meet heat demand sustainably and effectively. The moderator closed the event by thanking the speakers.

The webinar presentations are available here