Defining and accounting for waste heat and cold
This report provides guidance on defining and accounting for waste heat for the purposes of a) comprehensive assessments of waste heat potential under the Energy Efficiency and recast Renewable Energy Directives (EED and RED), and b) the targets under Articles 23 and 24 of the RED (heating and cooling, and district heating and cooling).
Off-site use of waste heat or cold only contributes to decarbonisation if it is truly “waste”, i.e. it could not reasonably be avoided or recovered for use on site. It must be a by-product of power generation, or an industrial or services activity. For cogeneration, all reasonable efficiency measures must have been implemented and in general only the heat from the condenser can be counted. District heating and cooling (DHC) networks are the only recognised end use.
Once those conditions are met, waste heat can be used to meet the heating and cooling target (Article 23 RED), and the DHC target (Article 24 RED), whether it comes from biomass, renewable electricity or even fossil fuels. However, waste heat and cold cannot be counted towards the overall EU renewable energy target of 32%.
For calculating progress towards those two sectoral targets, industry needs bottom-up reporting based on national registries of site-specific calculations. Pinch analysis should be used where possible. For the comprehensive assessments on the other hand, it is sufficient to use default values.
LYONS Lorcan;
KAVVADIAS Konstantinos;
CARLSSON Johan;
2021-11-23
Publications Office of the European Union
JRC126383
978-92-76-42588-5 (online),
1831-9424 (online),
EUR 30869 EN,
OP KJ-NA-30869-EN-N (online),
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC126383,
10.2760/73253 (online),
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