Economy & Jobs

Energy & Environment

By Anna Gumbau | EURACTIV.com

30-06-2022 (updated: 30-06-2022 )

Heating has until now been largely neglected in the EU’s renewable energy legislation. But this is now changing because of the Ukraine war, which is forcing Europeans to consider alternatives to Russian gas. [Jimmy Yan / Shutterstock]

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This article is part of our special report Solar thermal: En route to 2030.

The European Commission aims to scale up renewables in heating and cooling as a way to phase out Russian gas, although industry sources say there is still much to do to ensure a level playing field with dominant fossil-fuel heating technologies.

In its €300 billion ‘RePowerEU’ plan to wean itself off Russian gas, the European Commission seeks to encourage the deployment of renewable energies in heating and cooling, with plans to accelerate the deployment of large-scale heat pumps, geothermal and solar thermal energy.

The move is part of a wider EU push to increase the share of renewable energy, said a senior EU official who spoke on 20 June at a conference organised by Solar Heat Europe, an industry association.

Heating has until now been largely neglected in the EU’s renewable energy legislation. But this is now changing because of the Ukraine war, which is forcing Europeans to consider alternatives to Russian gas.

In its REPowerEU plan presented on 18 May, the Commission proposes to increase the EU’s renewable energy target to 45% of Europe’s energy mix by 2030 and to at least “triple” solar thermal capacity.

“If you want to meet a higher renewable energy target, you will need to deploy renewables in heating and cooling. And it’s very, very clear that this is a sector that has not yet realised its potential,” said Lukasz Kolinski, head of unit at the Commission’s energy department.

“That’s why we are further strengthening the framework here,” Kolinski said, adding that the renewable heating sector is “in pole position and one of the winners in the current situation.”

In addition to the RePowerEU initiative, the EU’s executive presented in May an EU Solar Rooftop Strategy that introduces an obligation for public and commercial buildings to install solar panels from 2026 and for residential buildings from 2029.

In turn, the review of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) released in December aims for zero-emission buildings in which renewable energies help cover heating and cooling needs. The Commission also wants to phase out fossil fuel boilers by 2029.

The European Commission will not propose banning gas-fired home boilers “overnight”, a senior EU official has said, explaining that differences in energy mix between EU member states are just too big to apply a one-size-fits-all solution.

As heating makes up almost 40% of the EU’s total gas consumption, renewable alternatives have gained considerable prominence since Russia invaded Ukraine.

“If we compare it to wind power, or to PV, we have the potential of quickly solving a large part of the energy puzzle,” said Joakim Bystrom, CEO at Absolicon, a solar heating company based in Sweden.

However, solar heating industry representatives say that this is not enough to create a level playing field against fossil fuels like gas or other alternatives like electrification and hydrogen.

“We very much support the investment that has been made in renewables and in other solar technologies, like solar PV, and efforts to have a renaissance of the PV industry in Europe,” said Pedro Dias, secretary general at Solar Heat Europe, who spoke at the same conference.

“But we also want to highlight the fact that we already have a leading solar thermal industry in Europe,” he added.

Solar thermal energy currently supplies around 10 million households across Europe. Its total capacity could increase to as much as 500 GW by 2035, and 2,000 GW by 2050, Solar Heat Europe said in a roadmap released last month.

However, solar and other renewable heating and cooling sources still lack a level playing field with fossil fuel boilers which continue benefitting from public subsidies.

“We need to move from an internal market for gas to an internal market for heat, so that we generally give renewable heating the same priority as in electricity,” said Sanjeev Kumar from the European Geothermal Energy Council.

“The lack of political visibility is one of the key things that’s holding back investments in renewable heating and cooling,” he added.

Similarly, representatives of the district heating industry feel that the European Commission has placed a stronger emphasis in individual renewable heating systems rather than collective solutions. “We lack the urgency and the money to invest in those systems,” said Aurelie Beauvais, managing director of EuroHeat & Power who spoke at the same conference.

One of the lawmakers steering the revision of the EU’s renewable energy directive in the European Parliament has called on the European Union to “at least triple” or even quadruple the production of clean energy from solar thermal by the end of the decade.

[Edited by Frédéric Simon]

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