KARNO: Belgian expertise in carbon-free heating 

Founded in 2021, KARNO designs, builds and operates heating and cooling networks powered exclusively by carbon-free energy sources: geothermal, river-based thermal energy, aquathermal or the recovery of waste industrial heat. As part of the Be.SHARE project, KARNO is contributing its expertise to the installation of the heating and cooling network and the geothermal system. Portrait of 2 colleagues, Donald Gilbert and Andrei Baicu.

Donald GILBERT, responsible for the Be.SHARE project for KARNO as a business developer.

I graduated at Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and hold an MBA in Business Administration. I have been working at KARNO for nearly four years and am the Be.SHARE project manager for KARNO as the business developer.  

Be.SHARE marks the first time KARNO has undertaken a project of this scale. My role is to strike the right technical and financial balance between consumers and producers. On a day-to-day basis, I need to be highly adaptable to bring all the stakeholders together. As the point of contact for prospective clients, I will seek to convey their requirements to our designers and engineers. I also bridge the technical and economic aspects of the project, ensuring that these are communicated in clear, accessible language that takes social considerations into account.

Andrei BAICU, Communication Officer at KARNO for the Be.SHARE project 

For the past seven years, I have been working in communications within the energy and renewable energy sector, with a particular focus on making the challenges of the energy transition accessible and understandable to as many people as possible.  

At KARNO, my role is to convey the company’s vision and projects to its various audiences. I am at the heart of the company’s activities, from projects being developed across Belgium, coordinating communication initiatives and bringing to life the various materials and outputs that enable us to share them.  

As part of the Be.SHARE project, I ensure that the project’s challenges, its technical solutions and the communication around them are effectively linked. My aim is to make these topics accessible, whilst ensuring that the reality and complexity of the project are accurately conveyed.

What are KARNO’s motivations and expectations for this project?

(Donald Gilbert) : Developer, manager and operator of district heating networks, Karno offers 360° solutions, tailored to each situation and in compliance with the legal framework.  

Our heating networks are powered exclusively by local renewable energy sources.  

Through Be.SHARE, KARNO is committed to implementing proven technical solutions, within a unique public-private-citizens partnership, to realize the vision of decarbonising our neighbourhoods through the design, development and roll-out of carbon-free district heating networks.  

For me, the innovative aspect of the project lies not in its technical solution but in its partnership. The synergy between social and technical elements is also very important. At the same time, this richness could also lead to complexity due to the number of stakeholders, their individual interests and/or the timing of each of their activities and their interdependencies, as well as the combination of highly social and highly technical aspects.  

Making energy accessible to all  

The real benefit lies in pooling and storage, which make local carbon-free sources accessible whilst optimising the scale of the heat production system. Centralisation and optimisation help to reduce both investment and operating costs. One of our main objectives is to facilitate the roll-out of these district heating networks in the city and to make this carbon-free heat accessible to the users who need it most – namely, those who are socio-economically disadvantaged – and to demonstrate that this is feasible both technically and financially.  

I’ll be delighted if the users at Foyer Laekenois appreciate the quality of the heat supplied at an affordable price and if requests for the extension of the network have been made.

KARNO in figures

  • 40 structured projects in Belgium and Luxembourg, for a total of nearly 200 million euros  
  • 8 district heating networks already operational in Belgium  
  • 65 people working on the projects, including 20 directly affected jobs  
  • Confirmed support from the European Investment Bank (EIB), with support planned for 13 new projects 

Useful links

More information on Be.SHARE, a European project for sustainable energy exchange in the city (FR)