Deploying a 5th generation carbon-neutral heating and cooling network
What makes the Be.SHARE 5th-generation carbon-neutral heating and cooling network (CNHCN) different from other generations? In what way is this project innovative? And what exactly is a 5th-generation CNHCN, given that the heating and cooling network in Neder-Over-Hembeek, which supplies energy to the Royal Palace and the Laeken Greenhouses, as well as the Dockx Shopping Centre, is a 3rd-generation network? Find out the answers to all these questions in the analysis by Marcelline Bonneau, an EUI expert supporting our Be.SHARE project.
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How more efficient is the 5th generation of CNHCN?
Throughout the different generations of district heating, the technology moved, in the last 150 years, from using steam pressure at more than 100°C to using heat waste (e.g. from incinerators ) between 100 and 70°C. A third generation Heating and Cooling Network has already been implemented in the Brussels-Capital Region in Neder-Over-Hembeek, where a network is using waste heat from an incinerator to heat the Royal Greenhouses, Docks Commercial Centre and Brussels Royal Palace, and an extension will soon heat public infrastructures (social housing, retirement homes, swimming pool, crèches, schools).
Along the years, with the evolution of insulation of buildings and the need for lower temperatures inside, the temperature needed for the network decreased. At the same time, solutions have evolved to optimise the resources, multiply them as well as to make them more efficient. Starting from the 4th generation, renewable energies have been used to provide heat at a temperature below 90°C.
The 5th generation goes one step further in providing new and complementary opportunities, combining different sources and users in a decentralised and bidirectional distribution. It uses renewable energy sources (riothermy, geothermy) to provide heat below 20°C. Heat pumps, are used in case there is a need to increase the temperature. It can then circulate heat and cold deepening on the users’ needs (to warmup or cool down).
Good to know
Be.SHARE will experiment a 5th generation CNHCN by proposing access to energy outside the users’ building plots, using a heating loop balancing heat and cold between end users with complementary energy needs, to optimise total energy capacity and improve local solidarity, and combining local renewable energy sources: geothermy, riothermy.
The Be.SHARE 5th generation of CNHCN : innovative in/for the public domain
The innovation of the Be.SHARE project is not so much the 5th generation CNHCN itself which already exists as a technology used in private spaces, but the fact that the solution will be implemented in the public domain, using public renewable resources and ensuring that end-users, especially from social housing, will be central to the decision-making process.
It will seek to prove that a low temperature heat network with carbon neutral sources from the public domain can balance between the needs and energy performances in mixed used areas and that complementary actions engaging citizens with regards to their energy usage and understanding are a must to decrease final energy consumption.
The project as a learning lab
The project as learning labBe.SHARE will be largely a technological project related to the technical and engineering design of a CNHCN using geothermal and riothermal energies for the CNHCN. But the full deployment of the CNHCN will cover legal (juridicaland commercial agreements to access public resources as well as to distribute them), economic (business model and tariffications), governance (roles and missions of the various stakeholders) and social (related to the end-users, in particular from social housings) concerns.
Each of the elements of the solutions will be linked to each other. For example, the technological solution cannot be implemented without permits and agreements, a viable business model, supported and informed by the partnership and with the involvement of the end-users. As such, the project will be exemplary in providing the baseline for the future development of such projects in the Brussel-Capital Region and beyond. More details coming soon!