SunHorizon, together with SuperHomes2030, organised the “Ambition requires action: The sustainable housing revolution with heat pumps” webinar on the 27th of September 2022.
The webinar aims at putting heat pumps at the centre of the green, digital, cost-effective energy transition and industrial transformation. The European Commission’s REPowerEU plan builds on the ambitious heat pump targets it set out in March. Those targets require around 20 million heat pumps to be installed in the EU by 2026 and nearly 60 million by 2030.
Sustainable housing considers the design, construction, and operation of houses over their lifetime in three contexts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and social sustainability. In 2020, 7.4% of the EU population were unable to keep their home adequately warm. Among the EU Member States, this percentage ranged from 1.5 % in Austria to 27.5 % in Bulgaria. Expanding the use of heat pumps can play a vital role in the growth of sustainable housing in Europe.
Thomas Nowak, Secretary General of EHPA, started the webinar with an introduction about the importance of heat pumps in all buildings – commercial and residential applications, but also industrial & district heating ones. The market of heat pumps doubled in the last five years, from 1.1 m in 2017 to 2.2 m in 2022 (+34% from 2020 to 2021). Based on 17 million heat pumps installed, Thomas presented the environmental benefits of the installation of heat pumps (e.g. 45,9 Mt of CO2 savings, 170 TWh of renewable energy, etc).
Then, Nora Ganzinelli, Project manager & business developer in RINA Consulting, presented the SunHorizon project after an introduction on RINA Consulting. She presented the demosites in Riga (Latvia), Madrid and Sant Cugat del Vallès (Spain) – the last one together with the SunHorizon app.
The third speaker is Sofia Lettenbichler, European Public Affairs Officer in EIT InnoEnergy about the EIT InnoEnergy from the points of view of sustainable cities and buildings, and energy efficiency. Robyn P’Mara, Chief Marketing officer in Electric Ireland Superhomes, presented the SuperHomes2030 project. Finally, Daniel Carbonell, Team leader -Thermal systems & modelling in SPF-OST presented the TRI-HP Project (Trigeneration systems based on heat pumps with natural refrigerants and multiple renewable sources).
The presentation of the event is downloadable here.
Please, find the recording of the event here.