/Editorial

M56. Is RELaTED over? Maybe it’s just the first stage in a longer journey.

We gathered around a Decentralised Ultra Low Temperature District Heating Network concept back in 2017. After 56 months, the RELaTED consortium has successfully achieved its goals. Is it over? Well, not really. It is now the time to scale-up. Roberto Garay, RELaTED Project Coordinator We developed, integrated, and tested our concept. These shall now be promoted for integration across existing and new DH systems. We developed systems to manage heat in and outwards of buildings, adapt temperature levels, and incorporate solar heat in a quite flexible setting. This is well proven in three of our sites, but it is now the time to develop it at a wider scale. This requires forward-looking DH network operators and customers, together [...]

2022-06-28T13:19:11+00:00June 28th, 2022|Editorial|

“RELaTED project has proven that de-carbonised and efficient district heating can be achieved”

Roberto Garay, RELaTED Project Coordinator RELaTED has been active since 2017. At that time, we envisioned a future where de-carbonised and efficient district heating could be achieved. We have actually done so. By the end of 2021, we have proven the feasibility of our concept. Furthermore, we have applied it in several networks representative of the diverse District Heating context in Europe. With progressive distribution temperature reductions, our experience in the Tarkon area is now extended over the full DH network in Tartu. Together with our local partner GREN, RELaTED has already tested the capacity to reduce distribution network loss by ca 5%. Belgrade has seen the renovation of the DH network in Vinogradski Venac. With this modernization, [...]

2022-01-17T14:03:00+00:00January 17th, 2022|Editorial|

NIBE delivers customized reversible heat pumps for ultra low temperature district heating

Author: Ted Holmberg and David Kroon, NIBE Research department. In April, NIBE delivered the last district heating reversible heat pump (DHRHP) and accessories to the last demo site Iurreta, Bilbao in the RELaTED project. These heat pumps together with the earlier heat pump, that was shipped to the DTI demo site in Copenhagen, were specifically adapted for the Ultra low temperature district heating (ULTDH) application. This means that these heat pumps typical source temperatures between 0 – 10 ℃ have been increased to 30 – 40 ℃. Also, safety functions have been implemented to utilize pure water as source media instead of commonly used frost protected liquids. Ted Holmberg (left picture) and David Kroon (right picture) at the Research [...]

2021-06-14T09:24:18+00:00June 14th, 2021|Editorial|

The RELaTED exploitation seminar shows that with ultra-low temperature district heating, everyone wins

Author: Richard Karl Henahan – Research Analyst at the Institute of Baltic Studies. Richard Karl Henahan – Research Analyst at the Institute of Baltic Studies. Last April, RELaTED partners took part in a three-day virtual exploitation seminar to formulate their individual exploitation plans. Exploitation plans help project beneficiaries develop a strategy and concrete actions for the protection, dissemination, and exploitation of the project results. At the end of the seminar, project partners created their own “Key Exploitable Results” tables which maps how the RELaTED results can be incorporated into their individual business plans. Exploitation plans help project beneficiaries develop a strategy and concrete actions for the protection, dissemination, and exploitation of the project results. Despite the technical and [...]

2021-01-14T11:55:52+00:00January 14th, 2021|Editorial|

“The global crisis of COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of the sustainable Energy Transition”

Author: Olga Macías, Smart Buildings and Cities Researcher at TECNALIA Research and Innovation. The last few months all the news has been overshadowed by the global crisis of COVID-19. This pandemic has turned the whole world upside down and shaken worldwide economies. Among other consequences, many of us agree that this crisis has highlighted the importance of the sustainable Energy Transition, and the need to search for solutions with technical and economic feasibility that will facilitate this transition. That is why, now more than ever, we believe in the concept of ultra-low temperature, de-carbonized and smart networks developed in the RELaTED project as a solution that allows transforming the current district networks with a greater use of renewable [...]

2020-06-02T15:41:27+00:00June 2nd, 2020|Editorial, News|

The RELaTED project will help us to improve Belgrade DH system in terms of decarbonization

Author: Ljubisa Vladic, Deputy of Production and Distribution Manager at PUC Beogradske Elektrane. Ljubisa Vladic, Deputy of Production and Distribution Manager at PUC Beogradske Elektrane. Belgrade DH system have significantly upgraded in the past decade in terms of increasing energy efficiency and reliable delivery of thermal energy. The RELaTED project, in which we participate as partners, will further help us to further improve the system in terms of lowering the temperature of the district heating network and decarbonization. It will be particularly important for us to look at the possibilities of local application of solar energy. It will be particularly important for us to look at the possibilities of local application of solar energy, which will be implemented [...]

2020-01-15T11:25:10+00:00January 15th, 2020|Editorial|

Decarbonization of Heat Supply to Urban Communities, a Regional Approach

Author: Jesús Mª Casado de Pradas. Energy Efficiency Technician in EVE, Ente Vasco de la Energía. Jesús Mª Casado, Energy Efficiency Technician in EVE. Thinking back, 9 years have passed since the publication of the Directive on the energy performance of buildings. Article 6 of that Directive identified the need to analyse the technical, environmental and economic feasibility of alternative installations in new buildings. These include district or block heating, particularly where it is based on energy from renewable sources, as well as Heat Pumps. These premises are included in Law 4/2019 on Energy Sustainability of the Basque Autonomous Community, published on 28 February this year. In effect, with respect to new buildings, provision should be made for [...]

2019-06-27T10:50:22+00:00June 24th, 2019|Editorial|

District Heating Systems are already Smart and in the path of de-carbonisation

This second newsletter of RELaTED provides an insight to the progress of our concept for the de-carbonisation of District Heating (DH) networks. We hope that it will be useful for any DH operator, technology supplier, engineers, and any other stakeholder in the DH industry. Roberto Garay, RELaTED Project Coordinator With the first year of the project already gone, we have found that DH systems deployed across EU are already digitalized to a large extent, with ongoing plans for full digitalization pretty soon. For instance, most of our demonstration networks in TARTU and BELGRADE were already in remote-reading schemes, and/or controlled through predictive algorithms. RELaTED project will help most of our demonstration networks to be pioneers in low temperature, [...]

2019-01-16T19:00:12+00:00January 16th, 2019|Editorial|

Editorial: “We need to adapt district heating systems to 21st century”

Roberto Garay, RELaTED Project Coordinator District heating systems span below our feet in many cities across Europe. These are complex systems, some of them conceived in the preceding generation, which still today are the cheapest, most reliable and environmentally friendly way to deliver heat to our cities. We want to take profit of existing networks, but at the same time, we need to adapt these to ensure their competitivity in a changing environment in the 21st Century.  In this newsletter, you will learn about our RELaTED system. This system takes profit of continuous development of regulations and improvement in heat diffusion systems in buildings to reduce as much as possible distribution temperatures in the network, thus reducing distribution [...]

2018-06-07T11:54:30+00:00June 1st, 2018|Editorial|