heat and cooling supply
Renewables currently provide 11% of OECD Europe’s primary energy demand for heat supply, the main contribution coming from the use of biomass. The lack of district heating networks is a severe structural barrier to the large scale utilisation of geothermal and solar thermal energy.
In the Energy [R]evolution Scenario, renewables provide 61% of OECD Europe’s total heating and cooling demand in 2050.
- Energy efficiency measures can decrease the current demand for heat supply by 18%, in spite of improving living standards.
- For direct heating, solar collectors, biomass/biogas as well as geothermal energy are increasingly substituting for fossil fuelfired systems.

