On June 20, during the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW), the European Technology and Innovation Platform on Renewable Heating & Cooling (RHC-ETIP) successfully held its annual meeting. Around 50 experts representing different Renewable Energy Sources in Heating and Cooling (RES-HC) technologies (Solar Thermal, Geothermal, Biomass, Heat Pumps and Cross-cutting) attended the meeting.

The conditions to increase innovation in the EU renewable heating and cooling sector as well as the role of RES-HC technologies in the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan have been discussed in-depth. The Directorate-General Research & Innovation representatives (DG RTD) highlighted that the European Commission keeps its ambition for Europe to become the world number one in renewable energy and stressed the importance of an integrated approach to reach this goal.

Following the RHC-ETIP annual event, an ESTTP meeting was held. In addition to the Steering Committee, Panel members joined the discussions as well as Mr Piero de Bonis from DG RTD.

After in-depth updates on the market (national experiences, solar heat worldwide, IEA-SHC), the ESTTP’s contribution to the EC Temporary Working Group on action 5 of the SET Plan and to the 2018-2020 work programme of Horizon 2020 were discussed. Possible strategic actions for the future were identified in order to effectively keep promoting the uptake of Solar thermal in Europe.