Yesterday, our Belgian SEEDS partners (KU Leuven, Sweco Belgium, Mintus, Builtwins BV, Daikin Europe) had the pleasure of hosting an event for local stakeholders: “Collective heating and cooling solutions in Bruges.” ❄️☀️

Over 60 stakeholders from local governments, solutions providers, sector organisations and research institutes participated in this interactive event.

The event began with a site visit to De Schipjes, a set of heritage almshouses that acts as a living lab for sustainable collective heating and cooling provisioning. The group also visited a similar set of almshouses in Stijn Streuvelstraat, where the lessons learned from De Schipjes will be applied to succesfully renovate the houses and install a microgrid powered by heat pumps.

After some drinks and food, KU Leuven presented the innovations SEEDS will bring to the two Belgian pilot sites: #hybridisation through #renewableenergy sources, model predictive control (#MPC) and a #hydraulicswitch scheme.

Then, it was time for action! 💭 All stakeholders were invited to participate in a workshop, focused on the question: “Which barriers currently prevent the implementation of sustainable collective heating and cooling solutions?”

The participants shared experiences from different angles: How to incentivize citizens? How can we guarantee a positive business case? What about the legal and organizational constraints?

We hope to tackle some of these pertinent questions during Work Package 7 of the SEEDS project in the coming months and years.

Thanks to all participants for their active presence, and a special thanks to Mintus for hosting this engaging event! 🙌🏼

Click to read the event report and the workshop report, written by Natan Vandeginste!