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Description
Sea for Heritage Energy Transition - SEAHEaT project promotes the use of marine heat energy through heat pumps in energy renovation projects of buildings that represent cultural assets. The Republic of Croatia has an extremely high density of such facilities, and their concentration is particularly pronounced in the coastal area. Sea for Heritage Energy Transition - SEAHEaT project is applied for by the Special Hospital for Orthopedics and Rehabilitation “Martin Horvat” Rovinj-Rovigno. The partner consortium includes a donor partner from Norway, Apenhet AS, IRENA - Istrian Regional Energy Agency d.o.o., Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture and the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, University of Zagreb. Although Croatia has decades of experience in using seawater as a heating or cooling energy source through heat pumps, the systems are not very widespread, despite the huge potential of the Adriatic coast. This area also includes a large number of consumers, especially in the tourism sector, who require significant amounts of energy. Precisely due to the weak market share and poor visibility of this technology, cooperation with a donor partner is required, which should share its experiences, but also learn from Croatian partners. The Norwegian heat pump market is much more developed than the Croatian one. However, only a small portion of waste is on water-to-water systems. According to data, 105,000 heat pumps were sold in 2019, and it is estimated that around 1.2 million heat pumps have been installed throughout Norway. For the needs of the pilot project, two buildings of the Special Hospital for Orthopedics and Rehabilitation "Martin Horvat" in Rovinj were selected. It is planned to install four inverter heat pumps (25 - 100 kW of nominal heat output each).
Summary of project results
Main objectives:
1. Promotion of the installation of heat pumps using seawater
2. Pilot project of energy renovation of a building with the status of cultural property using a heat pump and seawater as the main energy source
3. Cooperation with a donor partner established
4. Capacity building of a wide range of stakeholders through cooperation with higher education institutions specialized in this area.
In accordance with the project plan and program, all activities were successfully implemented. As items that need to be emphasized, the implementation of heat pumps in an extremely short period of time and the conferences in which the public also participated (SEA ENERGY DAYS) were held, during which they were introduced to the benefits of the aforementioned systems and their benefits were explained. Of course, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources would also be emphasized, which would have a great impact on other buildings of a similar nature so that they could see the solution in the aforementioned system.
The promotion of heat pump installation was achieved most during the Sea Energy Days event that was attended by a large number of the public, who were explained the benefits of using heat pumps and, as the ultimate goal, brought savings to their households. The mentioned items were explained by highly qualified personnel who elaborated on the mentioned items and introduced the concept of using heat pumps to the general public.
It is also of utmost importance that the buildings in which the mentioned systems were implemented are buildings that have the status of cultural heritage. There are an exceptionally large number of buildings on the Croatian coast that are of the same character, and implementation in such buildings can serve as an excellent example of solving the energy renovation of such buildings
Cooperation was established with a Norwegian partner who, during the webinar held, enabled us to contact and connect with people who already know the mentioned systems very well, which expanded the knowledge of both ours and our project partners, and certainly enables new cooperation in the future.
As stated before, simply meeting new people and getting to know the broader picture of the aforementioned systems provides an extremely great benefit for our higher education institutions, which, thanks to the experiences and acquaintances they have gained, can share knowledge and introduce the wider public to its benefits.
Summary of bilateral results
Partnerships contributed to the results with the experience of the project partner and their expertise, which allowed us to better execute the project.The main challenge was the language barrier regarding the technical names of certain items, but it was successfully overcome thanks to all project partners and their commitment to the project implementation.