Globally, heating and cooling accounts for approximately half of all energy consumption. The majority of heating and cooling is still generated from fossil fuels. To fulfil the EU’s climate and energy goals, the heating and cooling sector must rapidly decarbonise.
Renewable heating and cooling technologies are safe, clean, efficient and increasingly cost-competitive. Solar thermal, geothermal, bioenergy and ambient and excess heat recovery can be used to supply heat to both buildings and industry via efficient district heating and cooling networks or as stand-alone solutions. These thermal energy sources, complemented with renewable electricity, are the backbone of a radically new, user-oriented, carbon-neutral, efficient, reliable, and flexible energy system.
Such a system will harvest locally available renewable energy sources providing considerable employment and economic benefits to the local economies and the European Union and at the same time involve end users and counteract energy poverty.
The Renewable Heating and Cooling (RHC) Focus group will work towards the goal of reducing fossil fuels to zero by 2050. Bring together investors, city stakeholders and technology suppliers, the RHC Focus group will drive the provision of 100% RHC in European cities, districts and buildings.