With Decarb City Pipes 2050, we organise monthly online capacity building sessions, to address specific issues related to the heating and cooling transition. These sessions are based on sharing of experience between peers, and invitation of key experts.

They are open mainly (but not only) to the members of the consortium, their utilities and the “sister cities” of the city partners (Innsbruck, Frankfurt-am-Main, Cork, St. Gallen, Den Hag and Dordrecht, Vitoria-Gasteiz).

This session will focus on waste heat, defined as “heat or cold which is generated as by-product in the industrial or tertiary sector which would be dissipated unused in air or water without access to a district heating or cooling system” in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). Its role may be growing, as shown in the Article 24 of the proposed recast of the RED published in July 2021 by the European Commission, stating the obligation for Member States to reuse waste heat.

Assessing the potential of waste heat and developing waste heat recovery projects in urban areas could thus help cities further decarbonise their district heating and cooling systems. Partners from Decarb City Pipes 2050 are exploring every possible opportunity to decarbonise their heating and cooling systems. For some of them, the availability of industrial waste heat in the vicinity could be a decisive argument to build and/or extend a district heating and cooling network.

This session will present insights from studies and projects done by the city partners and their stakeholders. Each presentation of 20-25 min will be followed by a Q&A session:

• The technical aspects of harvesting waste heat from data centres and seasonal storage, Matthias Kolb, Anex Ingenieure AG
• Policy and legislation favouring heat recovery, Kristina Lygnerud, Swedish Environment Research Institute
• Implementing district heating in interaction with local actors (examples of Zürich, and St Gallen) , Matthias Kolb, Anex Ingenieure AG

Interested in this session? Please register via this link.