Bio-Net Know – Know-how development to transform biomass-based local heating grids into a sustainable energy supply system

Local heating grids play an important role in Austria’s regional heat supply. With its heating strategy, Austria has set the goal of climate neutrality of the heating sector by 2040. With a total of more than 2000 biomass heating plants, the oldest plants have been in operation for more than 35 years and a considerable part of them are already older than 10 years, which means that these local heating plants have an increased need for optimisation and R&D measures. Actions as “Get out of oil” and the decreasing heating demand of buildings set operators new challenges in the field of network expansion as well as in quality assurance and optimisation of the heating grid in order to guarantee economic efficiency. In addition, there is still great potential in the use of decentralised and renewable energy sources as well as storage solutions. Many of these issues have already been addressed in research projects and targeted solutions have been developed. What is missing, however, is adequate further training to pass on the knowledge to regional consultants and technical planners as well as directly to interested heating plant operators in order to enable the best possible increase in efficiency and quality assurance of the Austrian local heating grids. In addition to the latest technical findings on the optimisation of local heating grids in the face of decreasing heat demand from customers, the utilisation of waste heat potential from industry and the optimisation of summer and fluctuating demand with renewable technologies, as well as economic financing models and service models for customer acquisition will be communicated. The innovation camp thus offers companies targeted training and the opportunity to build up new knowledge and skills.