The second consortium meeting of the SEEDS EU project took place in the picturesque pilot city of Bruges thanks to our hosts: Sweco, KU Leuven, and Mintus. Our consortium gathered for an insightful kickoff event, including two site visits within the heritage neighborhoods’ renovation.
Our Belgian demo features two significant sites:
– ‘De Schipjes’ (DeS) Pilot Site: a social housing neighbourhood in Bruges’ historic city center, comprising 12 households. Renovated in 2014 as part of a VLAIO living-lab project, the focus was on energy efficiency and ecological sustainability under heritage restrictions. Key features include a low-temperature thermal network, a centralized ground source heat pump, solar collectors, and innovative water heating systems.
– ‘Stijn Streuvelsstraat’ Replication Site: another historical social housing neighbourhood (15 houses) in Bruges, set to replicate the DeS concept. This site will demonstrate the high replication potential in challenging heritage contexts, building on insights from DeS to implement an electrified hybrid collective solution.
Our Belgian partners hosted an event for local stakeholders: “Collective heating and cooling solutions in Bruges” which successfully attracted over 60 stakeholders from local governments, solutions providers, sector organisations, and research institutes! They were invited to gather their thoughts on a problem: “Which barriers currently prevent the implementation of sustainable collective heating and cooling solutions?” and their insights are valuable as we work towards Work Package 7: Decision making support framework for replication of thermal demand electrification and improved energy efficiency.
We then shared progress on our 6 pilot sites, and 8 work packages with an honorary highlight to Work Package 6 – Replication Strategies, Exploitation, and Business Models, led by RINA. Sweco led an in-depth workshop after a coffee break while R2M Solution France conducted rounds of interviews with the technical WP leaders and the Sweco pilot.
The second consortium meeting was a success: our workshop attracted local stakeholders while allowing us to collect valuable opinions that will help us move forward with Work Package 7. We are grateful to each of our partners for their phenomenal work on the SEEDS project as well as their efficient cooperation. We would like to offer a special thanks to our Belgian partners, Sweco, KU Leuven and Mintus for making our stay enjoyable, with excellent hosting, an interesting city hall visit, and an enlightening social program!
