Heat Roadmap Europe

Heat Roadmap Europe (HRE) is a series of three studies that have been carried out since 2012. In total, 18 different reports have been produced in these studies, primarily relating to the long-term changes that are necessary to decarbonise the heating and cooling sector in Europe.

When the study began in 2012, it was clear that there is a large amount of basic and critical data currently missing about the heating sector in Europe, which is a major barrier in the design and analysis of future solutions for the heating sector.

The knowledge in HRE includes a range of new data, tools, methodologies, and results, which have combined a variety of knowledge across energy system analysis, heat savings, district heating and cooling, GIS mapping, and renewable energy. This has required the coordination of many different partners across different universities, consultancies, and industries, many of which are part of the 4DH consortium. Some key achievements from this work include:

  • The first ever quantification of the heating and cooling demand in Europe, both for today as well as forecast of their future development
  • The first ever pan-European thermal atlas (Peta) of the heating and cooling demand in Europe (www.heatroadmap.eu), which resulted in a new tool called Peta.
  • The first ever quantification of the excess heat volumes available from power plants, waste incineration, and industry in Europe, all of which can be utilised on district heating networks.
  • The first ever quantification of renewable resources available for district heating networks in Europe, including large-scale solar thermal, direct geothermal, and heat pumps.
  • The first ever comparison at European level between the cost of heat savings and sustainable heat supply. This comparison is currently a major point of interest in EU energy policy, since it has altered the common belief that heat savings alone will be enough to decarbonise the heat sector.
  • The first every hourly models that simulated the impact of district heating and cooling, including their impact on the electricity and industrial sectors. These models are distributed freely online, thus enhancing the capacity of others to also analyse the impact of district heating and cooling.
  • The first ever study to demonstrate how a simultaneous expansion of heat savings, district heating, and heat pumps will result in the cheapest low-carbon heat sector for Europe. The modelling tools used by the European Commission did not have the ability to adequately simulate the expansion of district heating and cooling, so the results from this analysis have already been utilised by EU policymakers to inform their ongoing work.

By developing this knowledge in different forms such as new data, tools, methodologies, and results about the heating and cooling sector, HRE has already had a major impact on the heating and cooling sector in Europe.



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