EREC conference sheds light on buildings of the future: heat pumps are an integral part!
The conference was divided into four sessions: A first session focusing on the European legal framework including speakers like Philip Lowe, Director-General of the DG Energy who stated that the vision of 100% renewable energy sources (RES) by 2050 is not a dream, but a challenge that has to be met. Christine Lins, Secretary General of EREC confirmed this and stressed that a scenario of 100% RES is indeed feasible.
The second session focused on historical buildings and how a rational use of energy and energy efficiency targets can be realized in the best way whereas the third session's topic went one step further by claiming net-zero energy buildings for new constructions.
Finally, the last session of the event dealt with the energy footprint of the building's sector and the question of how it can be reduced in order to efficiently contribute to the vision of 100% RES by 2050 taking into account the large part of energy consumption coming from the building's sector.
The EHPA is convinced that heat pumps offer a large contribution potential to these goals. The technology provides a large reduction potential in the use of non-renewable energy (both primary and final) by making efficient use of renewable energy from air, water and ground. Consequently, the installation of heat pumps does also reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Heat pumps can be employed nearly every application field in today's and future cities (see attached illustration) to provide heating, cooling and domestic hot water.
Several success factors for the future development of this technology and the increase of its contribution towards lowering the energy footprint of buildings have been identified. They include (but are not limited to) the energy price ratio of different energy sources vs. electricity, a stable public support, both financial and institutional, recognition of the technology in R & D funding schemes and an existing planning, installation and maintenance infrastructure for the heat pump industry. The latter has been actively developed through national and European Heat Pump Associations that have been working together on quality assurance and common training & certification schemes in order to guarantee well trained installers and products that deliver energy reliably and efficiently.
The European heat pump market statistics of the last years confirm the positive development of the market and the prospect and importance of heat pump technology towards the realization of the vision of 100% RES by 2050. The presentations of all the speakers are available on the EREC website.
The concept of "future cities = heat pump cities" is explained in more detail in the last EHPA newsletter, a presentation on the topic was held at the Sustainable Energy Week event.