European Commission proposes heating and cooling strategy to tackle gas import dependency

29.02.2016

In a recently published Communication the European Commission proposes an EU heating and cooling strategy that aims to reduce the high share of fossil fuels which makes up about 75% of primary energy demand in the European heating and cooling sector.

Here renewable energy accounts for only 18% and natural gas is the single major fuel with about 46%.   The sector is extremely important: Heating and cooling is responsible for 50% of the EU’s final energy demand. All in all, this makes heating and cooling a major cause of the gas crises in 2006 and 2009. Reducing gas demand for heating and cooling can contribute substantially to lowering the risk of future gas crises. These and similar figures that provide the basis for the EU’s strategy document have been calculated in an ongoing project by a consortium which involves the FORECAST team. The model FORECAST was used for industry (Fraunhofer and IREES) and service sector (TEP Energy) calculations while the residential energy demand was calculated using INVERT/ee-lab (TU Vienna). Until this project has been finalized, we will use both models to calculate scenarios for future energy demand for heating and cooling and provide policy recommendations. 

More about the proposal for a heating and cooling strategy can be found here.

More about the project Mapping and analyses of the current and future (2020 - 2030) heating/cooling fuel deployment (fossil/renewables) can be found here.

More about the project progRESsHEAT – Fostering the use of renewable energies for heating and cooling can be found here.

Primary energy for heating and cooling in the EU in 2012 (source: EU heating and cooling strategy)