Value proposition

Rolling out 5th Generation District Heating and Cooling (5GDHC) in North-West Europe

Increasing the share of renewable energy by accelerating the roll-out of demand-driven smart grids delivering low temperature heating and cooling to NWE cities.

The D2GRIDS project aims to develop 5th generation urban heating and cooling networks (5G DHC) in Europe. They will allow to anticipate the needs or sources of fatal heat, cold or renewable electricity in their vicinity. Similarly, local collective self-consumption logic will be optimized by broadly integrating heating and cooling needs, storage capacities or associated thermal or electrical flexibility.

The objective is to maximize the share of renewable energies in these local energy loops, through an industrialization of the approach, a standardized technological model, and a clarification of the business model to strengthen the interest of these projects for third party investors.

The project involves the implementation of 5 demonstrators in Paris-Saclay (FR), Bochum (GE), Brunssum (NL), Glasgow and Nottingham (UK). D2Grids will also prepare similar developments in Parkstad Limburg, North-East France, Flanders, the Ruhr region, Scotland and the East Midlands (United Kingdom). Dedicated education and training programmes will be set up by Open University, a partner in the project, providing expertise in post-graduate and digital learning.

The project has been extended following the 2nd Interreg NWE capitalisation call. In this context, the project benefits from new funding and a new working group composed of 7 partners of the initial consortium as well as 4 new partners. The D2Grids consortium will thus be in charge of working on a better integration of electrical uses and local renewable electricity production capacities, in order to improve the decarbonisation of 5GDHC networks.

Know more about D2GRIDS and 5GDHC on the website!

Smart Grids, Renewable Energy, 5GDHC, Smart Buildings, Heating and Cooling Systems, Energy Loops, European Project, and Interreg