Brescia hosts landmark heating and cooling decarbonisation talks

Italian province welcomes LIFE Platform RePowerEU Conference and champions low-carbon heating and cooling solutions

A high-level conference focusing on strategies to decarbonise heating and cooling across Europe has kicked off in Italy with the aim of delivering a step-change in decarbonisation policies.

The LIFE Platform RePowerEU Conference is being held in Brescia, a hub of Italian engineering expertise and home to many heavy industries which are taking steps to make their businesses sustainable.

It is backed by the European Commission’s Directorates General for Climate Action (DG Climate) and Energy (DG ENER), plus the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA).

The event matched national and European experts from the industrial heat sector with their counterparts from the domestic and residential sector to share best practices and to draft a policy plan for heating and cooling to be handed over to the new EU Commission and member state governments.

The conference was organised in conjunction with Italian heat pump manufacturer Turboden and regional industrial association Confindustria Brescia.

Franco Gussalli Beretta, President of Confindustria Brescia, said hosting the event in Brecia served two important purposes: firstly, it highlighted that “Europe is our home: a concept we have learnt to assimilate, both as citizens and as entrepreneurs. Believing in Europe can and must therefore be a necessity.”

However, it also served as an opportunity “to bring Europe to us”.

Turboden chief executive Paolo Bertuzzi said the electrification of heat using heat pumps “is proving to be the most competitive decarbonisation solution for residential, industrial and district heating”.

“Europe, and Italy in particular, have the right know-how to lead the development both on the demand side and as a leader on the supply side, with important spin-offs also in terms of employment.”

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Speakers taking part in the conference included Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Minister for the Environment and Energy Security; Maria Velkova, Deputy Head of Unit DG CLIMA, and Hans Rhein, Head of Unit at CINEA.

And as a real-world example of heating and cooling innovation, participants at the conference will this week visit the manufacturing plant of Brescia steelmaker ORI Martin.

The plant was the focus of a EU project called HEATLEAP, which saw Turboden install a high-temperature industrial heat pump which recovers waste heat from ORI’s production process and repurposes it for the city of Brescia’s district heating network.

Bertuzzi said the development of large heat pumps for industrial users and utilities “is the driver for future developments in the heating and cooling sector on a global scale”.

I visited the ORI Martin in March to see the heat pump installation, and Carolina de Miranda, Sustainability Manager of ORI, was keen to stress the sustainability credentials of Italy’s steelmakers.

“Italy is number one in the world for using electric furnaces,” she said, explaining that around 60% of EU steel is made using the energy- and CO2-intensive blast furnace process, while in Italy, 85% of steel is made via electric arc furnaces.

“We are the most decarbonised steel country in the world.”