Celsius has officially launched an Initiative focussing on Heating & Cooling as part of the Action Cluster Sustainable Districts & Built Environment of the Smart Cities Marketplace. The Smart Cities Marketplace is a major market-changing undertaking supported by the European Commission bringing together cities, industries, SMEs, investors, researchers and other smart city actors.
With the Heating & Cooling Initiative, Celsius will aim at to share the knowledge gathered from the Celsius Initiative and the Celsius Cities to inspire further uptake of solutions, and to benchmark the projects underway against Smart Cities Marketplace members’ activities.
What is planned?
Dedicated workshops on topics that will make a difference in the heat transition for cities will be organised in the coming months. We will also share outcomes and lessons learned from selected forerunner groups that have managed to realise projects and overcome challenges common for many cities in the heat transition.
As a first activity, a workshop discussing and validating the paper on Financing for Heating & Cooling networks, written under the Urban Agenda framework, will be organised and stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide feedback and comments.
As district heating and cooling projects are very specific in the different project phasis, including planning, investment and project realisation, and differ significantly from other non-infrastructure Smart City solutions, we aim at offering dedicated tools and guidance. Therefore, the Smart Cities guidance package will be updated for district energy network projects, including lessons learned from the Celsius forerunner groups, and the already existing DHC solutions booklet.
Furthermore, the initiative will support the market uptake of efficient and renewable heating & cooling solutions by encouraging and facilitating contact between experts and cities through pro-active and anticipatory guidance. For the Smart Cities marketplace, Celsius will organise dedicated DHC market uptake sessions; this will also facilitate the knowledge sharing with cities still outside of the Celsius network. After a first Smart Cities Marketplace Masterclass that has been organised in January and February 2021 for Celsius cities, a new edition is foreseen for autumn 2021.
Further activities may include drafting of policy papers and inputs to inform the EC about needs and challenges cities in the heat transition are facing. It is essential that DHC expertise from local level be fed into the EU’s overall policy-making process as Europe plots a course towards a decarbonised energy system, and the Fit for 55 Package in particular.
