The Italian magazine Servizi a Rete presents UpgradeDH, the EU H2020 project for the renovation and improvement of the performance of district heating systems in Europe, where Optit participate as major technical partner.
Nowadays, the urban planning strategies adopted by northern Europe administrations have demonstrated that heat distribution planning can be effectively considered a strategic asset such as electrical and gas grids.
Studies and experiences from an outstanding part of the scientific and industrial community show the need to overcome the model of district heating as a heat transfer system from a large fossil fuel plant to final consumers (e.g. building, offices, factories). Today, in fact, the technology allows the capitalization and integration of different sources of energy, making obsolete the central distribution model in favor of a multienergy and coupling strategy combined with increasing digitalization to integrate different sources of energy.
It is on this basis that project partners are developing research activities aimed at designing business models, decision-making and planning processes, and widespread communication activities to support the improvement and modernization of district heating networks.
The challenge is important and for this reason UpgradeDH involves countries with climatic, economic and technological development conditions that are completely different from each other to tackle every aspects and scenario in the industry.
The full article, written in Italian, is freely available on the website of “Servizi a Rete”.
