Transformation of existing urban district heating and cooling systems from fossil to renewable energy sources
RES-DHC stands for a wider introduction of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in the District Heating and Cooling (DHC) sector. The RES-DHC project addresses the manifold market uptake challenges related to the transformation of DHC systems to higher shares of RES. In particular it aims at the development of solutions and instruments which support policy and sector stakeholders in (over-)fulfilling Art. 24 of the Renewable Energy Directive II (directive 2018/2001), requiring a yearly increase of RES in DHC by 1%. The main objective of the RES-DHC project is to support the transformation of existing urban DHC systems to RES in six participating regions and thereby to derive - from these practical cases - technical and organizational solutions for such transformation processes. This is reached with two key approaches: A vertical pillar of the project is a close-to-market implementation process of concrete actions and measures by regional stakeholder consortia in the six regions (in DE, AT, IT, PL, FR and CH). The phases of this implementation process are 1) strategy and action planning based on local stakeholder consultation 2) an implementation phase starting already at an early stage of the project including capacity building, legal framework improvements, market support, and triggering investments in RES DHC. Technical enablers are, beside RES, also sector coupling and the use of low grade heat sources. A key horizontal beam of the project is to organize and give transnational support to the regional stakeholder consortia. This support is provided by an international team of expert partners with specific and complementary competences and coordinated by Danish experts. The specific actions of the RES-DHC project meet the market uptake challenges of this call to a great extent, e.g.: Introduction of RES at large scale, stakeholder engagement, assessment of legal and political frameworks and of the environmental, economic and social impact of RES DHC solutions.