The transition to a healthy and sustainable heating system, both for people and for the environment, is not an easy one. Through our Cities Heat Detox campaign, which spotlights inspiring cases of heat decarbonisation across Europe, we have explored different obstacles cities face when decoupling from fossil fuels.
While some of these challenges are shared, others are specific to each distinct context, and overcoming them depends on national frameworks. This is where the role of national or regional energy and climate agencies is critical. And why it’s important to see how Covenant Supporters are helping cities with their heat detox at regional or national levels.
Croatia, where natural gas is still subsidised and remains the principal source of heating, still has a long way to go. Nevertheless, there are still some important opportunities to be seized. As such, the North-West Croatian Regional Energy and Climate Agency (REGEA), a Covenant Supporter, is helping cities and towns in this transition, while also working together with District Heating companies.
We spoke with Tomislav Novosel, from REGEA, to explore the heat landscape of Croatian cities, and the role that REGEA plays in supporting them in their heat detox.
What are the principal sources of heat in Croatia currently?
The majority of the heat supply in Croatia comes from natural gas. There is a large share of heating coming from a theoretically renewable source, meaning firewood, which is not really sustainably sourced in many cases and has its own issues in terms of localised pollution. There is some biomass, there is very minimal solar and there is still a little bit of light fuel oil in the systems. But beyond that, the majority of the heating actually comes from natural gas, be it in individual gas boilers or through district heating.
What are the biggest challenges the country faces to decarbonise its heat?
In terms of heating, some of the biggest challenges that we have, I think there's probably three key issues that I would highlight.
The first one would be the age of our buildings. A lot of the buildings are old and poorly maintained, which is mainly due to the second issue: the ownership structure. Each apartment is owned by an individual or a family, so buildings tend to have dozens of owners, making any renovations to increase energy efficiency complicated and lengthy. Additionally, the minimum maintenance fee is also very low, so buildings don't accumulate the resources for proactive maintenance. As such, most of the maintenance happens reactively, rather than through planned improvements.
And the third issue is our widespread natural gas grid, which covers all big cities, even in low-demand coastal areas. Most gas heating relies on individual boilers in buildings rather than centralised systems, so degasification is slow and costly, requiring pipes to be replaced building by building.
On top of that, our markets conditions aren't favourable to switching away from gas, because energy and fuel are heavily subsidised in Croatia. Our gas is being subsidised since the war in Ukraine started and the price of gas for retail consumers hasn't increased. Despite EU pressure to end these subsidies, they are still there, meaning there's no real incentive for users to switch from gas to another source. High investment costs and minimal savings make transitioning away from gas in of these market conditions unlikely.
What role does District Heating (DHC) play in Croatia and what is the potential for decarbonisation?
In Croatia, we have district heating systems in roughly 10 cities. District heating covers about 14 to 15% of the total heat supply in the country, and the market is dominated by our national utility company. So unlike in many countries, our district heating systems are mostly not owned by the cities, they are owned by the national utility company called HEP – the Croatian Electrical Company.
85% of the total DHC market is in the city of Zagreb, which holds a quarter of Croatia’s population, and the city of Zagreb is covered by about 33% by district heating. The rest is mostly natural gas. The primary supply in Zagreb is CHP [Combined heat and power], gas fired, and there are some CHPs in other cities like Rijeka, which has recently switched from heat only boilers to CHPs.
For the past couple of years Croatia has used the Integrated Territorial Investments Funds to do a lot of refurbishments around the district heating grids in several big cities including Zagreb, Karlovac, Rijeka and a few others, where in some cases more than half of the distribution network has been completely refurbished and replaced by modern, efficient, pre-insulated pipes.
Overall, it was a very good programme, since the Commission gave resources directly to the local and regional governments. The money was allocated to each country for the local and regional authorities to decide on their priorities and for resources to be distributed based on that.
Where is REGEA focusing its efforts to promote change in the heating landscape for cities in Croatia?
There are, I would say, two main areas where we are working to make change.
The first one is working directly with the district heating companies helping them to modernise their supply and distribution. We can't subsidise natural gas indefinitely. As prices go up naturally, the current way of things will have to change, and people will slowly be forced to shift away from natural gas. To facilitate this process, we are trying to support the district heating companies in modernising their production and their distribution.
One of the elements that still needs to be addressed is further expansions of the district heating grids. In Zagreb, where we have the highest share of district heating, it only covers only one-third of the city, while full coverage is feasible due to its small size, dense multi-apartment buildings, and population of about a million. The central parts of Karlovac, Sisak, which all have district heating systems, would also be good candidates for expansion, where there are also quite a few viable alternatives to natural gas for heating supply.
Croatia also lies on the Pannonian Basin, rich in geothermal potential. Unfortunately, exploiting geothermal energy is long, risky, and expensive, so we need alternatives before it can be brought up to speed.
Additionally, there are opportunities for solar thermal energy in several cities, as Croatia's sunny climate, even in continental areas, could cover at least summer loads. For instance, hot water preparation during summer could largely be handled by solar energy in many cities, especially smaller ones like Zaprešić. We have been trying to work with the city of Zaprešić for several years to kickstart the first large-scale solar thermal project in Croatia. However, progress has been slow due to high investment costs and the utilities’ reluctance to adopt new business models.
Landscape of Zaprešić
There are also a lot of opportunities to use heat pumps, especially in combination with wastewater treatment plants. We are working on projects in several cities that could meet a significant portion of their heat demand. It’s quite a nice synergy, as these projects could produce an additional revenue stream for wastewater treatment plants. The plants are typically located near cities and, in many cases, close to existing district heating grids, making integration easier.
Regarding cooperation with the district heating company, we are supporting them in this process. Through the LIFE project D2Heat, we are helping them develop the technical documentation and improve public procurement to access funding. Additionally, we're identifying funding sources and currently exploring with the Ministry of Sustainable Development the option of launching a dedicated modernisation fund call specifically for district heating operators.
Where do you think you can have the most impact in helping cities?
Regarding cooperation with the cities themselves, we are supporting them in implementing their plans. Although cities in Croatia have capacities to develop plans, actual implementation of such plans is difficult, because of limited capacities especially on a legislative standpoint, with decision-making happening top-down.
While cities can create sustainable energy and climate action plans, they lack the authority to pass their own laws or set their own standards beyond national building regulations. They can incentivise actions in areas under their control, like municipal buildings and roads, but convincing private investors to follow higher standards or choose sustainable heating is challenging.
However, cities do have authority over spatial plans, both a planning and enforceable document that cities themselves create. These plans outline the development of the city within its own territories and give cities the capacity to demand certain actions. Through another LIFE-funded project, IN-PLAN, we are spreading awareness and building capacity within cities to use these spatial plans to enforce their energy and climate vision.
Before the project, we tested the approach with Karlovac, creating guidelines to integrate elements from their sustainable energy and climate action plan into their spatial plan. This led to a suburban spatial plan banning the use of fossil fuels and foreseeing only renewable energy sources, along with the city's district heating system, as a viable source of space heating and energy for domestic hot water. It also included higher energy efficiency standards for new buildings and for the use of green infrastructure, facilitating climate change adaptation measures as well as mitigation. This was later applied to the new general urbanistic plan of the city, albeit with some limitations.
Through the project, we have supported a couple other cities in adding similar recommendations to their spatial plans. The goal is to build cities' capacity to enforce their plans, not just create them. However, this specific mechanism mainly impacts new or extensively renovated buildings, leaving existing ones in need of different solutions.
Now, with the heat planning obligation from the EU, cities are required to plan for heating. How does that look in Croatia?
Currently, there is no dedicated heat planning in Croatia. While cities have Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), they don’t meet the depth required by the EU directive. There are some national obligations on the topic, but they are not close to what the directive requires.
However, through the D2Heat project, we are developing detailed heating plans for a couple of our cities, including some heat demand mapping. REGEA is well equipped to support cities develop their heating and cooling plans, although cities themselves will not have the capacity to do this without external support. Regarding the transposition process for integrating the EU directive into our national legislation, I expect it will take the full two years to transpose this directive into our legislation.
However, we are already preparing to assist cities through the new LIFE-funded ESCALATE project, which will educate cities and regional agencies on creating these plans. We'll also develop templates and tools, building on EU projects like Hotmaps for heat demand mapping. The main issue is that many cities lack the necessary data to create heat plans. A good example of available data is Zagreb's Energy Atlas, a GIS database with information on every building in the city. We're working with Zagreb and the tool's developer, GDI, to enhance it by adding climate hazard data, such as heat stress and flood-prone areas. This will make it a powerful resource for informed urban planning.
Данни
- Дата на публикуване
- 17 December 2024