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Newsletter #2

A Letter from the PLANHEAT Coordinator

Dear PLANHEAT community,

This September, our PLANHEAT project celebrated its first birthday with a collaborative and fruitful two-day meeting in wonderful Lecce, one of our validation cities. It is unbelievable that one year ago our project started and so much hard work has been performed so far, thanks to the great collaboration of all the PLANHEAT partners.

What has happened so far?

The most important outcome of this first year is that the global structure of the tool and the functionalities of each module have been defined. Cities and public authorities are indeed the real protagonists of the PLANHEAT project.

Becoming a PLANHEAT city is a great opportunity particularly to access to the recently launched e-learning platform and training plan, a free opportunity to get acquainted to urban energy planning basics and to learn how to use the PLANHEAT tool and other energy mapping and planning techniques.

What's now?

Now it's time to write down codes and realise the tool itself! If the first PLANHEAT year has been a success, the second one looks very promising and challenging at the same time.

Best regards,
Stefano Barberis

RINA Consulting, PLANHEAT Project Coordinator

Shortened version, read the full version here

 

First training sessions: we need your feedback!

In September, the first training courses on Module 1 of the PLANHEAT tool took place.

The training webinars were targeted to different European regions, including Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe and the Balkans. Dedicated regional experts were available to answer questions during the webinars.

In case you have missed the webinars, the recorded webinars and all training materials are accessible via the e-learning platform.

How did you like our first PLANHEAT training webinars? Help us improve our next training sessions and fill in the short feedback survey! The survey only takes 3 minutes to complete.

Fill in the survey

Year 1 Milestone Reached: City Mapping Module Completed!

The PLANHEAT team is proud to announce the first release of the City Mapping Module of the PLANHEAT tool.

The first mock-up was validated during the stakeholder engagement workshop in Brussels in June 2017. During the summer 2017, the module has been successfully completed and a live demo was presented to the project partners in September 2017. It was well received by the validation cities Antwerp, Velika Gorica and Lecce.

In the following weeks, new algorithms will be incorporated, allowing to map the potential supply from solar, geothermal, biomass, waste energy sources and industrial activities.

Find out more

Why are cities hotter than rural areas and what does this mean for heating & cooling?

Urban areas are hotter than rural areas. This is known as the urban heat island effect and impacts cities and their demand for energy in various ways.

To satisfy the needs of the rising number of urban dwellers, urban areas vastly expanded and large portions of natural lands were converted to impervious surfaces, such as roads, pavements, buildings, squares etc. The above in combination with a decrease in evapotranspiration and the flow of air through the cities (the building act as obstacles for the wind) and an increase in anthropogenic heat emissions (e.g. car emissions) and air pollution led to a raise in city ambient temperatures.

This relative warmth of urban areas in respect to rural areas is known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.

P. Sismanidis and I. Keramitsoglou from the National Observatory of Athens explain the Urban Heat Island Effect, its causes and its consequences.

Read the full article

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Funded by the European Union's H2020 Programme under grant agreement 723757. The sole responsibility for the content lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EASME nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.



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