The heating and cooling sector has been recognised as key for achieving decarbonisation and energy efficiency targets. The Joint Research Centre has presented two clean transition pathways for the heating sector in EU Member States, namely electrification of heat and efficient heat and power production and district heating networks. The study finds that electrification of heat, by replacing all current fossil-fuelled heat generation technologies by heat pumps, would reduce by 16% the combined emissions of the heat and power sector. The implementation of the second pathway concludes that if all current or future steam based power plants were operating on CHP mode together with district heating networks (including thermal storage), the overall efficiency of the energy system would increase significantly. Read more about decarbonising the EU heating sector in the JRC’s technical report.

Source: Joint Research Centre