HeatCOOP
Residents-Owned Heat Cooperatives to Push Urban Decarbonisation
© HeatCOOP
- Category
- Project
- Call
- DUT Call 2022
- Duration
- –
- Project coordinator
- realitylab GmbH
HeatCOOP tackles one of Europe’s major challenges: the decarbonisation of heating in existing urban neighbourhoods. While electricity communities are spreading rapidly, similar models for heat are missing due to high upfront investment costs, complex ownership structures, and legal barriers. The project addresses these organisational, financial, and legal challenges by developing a cooperative-based prototype for shared urban heating systems. It enables building owners and residents to jointly plan, finance, and manage renewable heat infrastructure as a “heat transition community.” By transferring the proven cooperative model to the field of urban heating, HeatCOOP empowers citizens to become active drivers of the energy transition.
The project develops organisational, legal, business, and financial models that make collective ownership of heating infrastructure viable. Together with citizens in three Living Labs in Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, HeatCOOP tests how “heat transition cooperatives” can plan, finance, and operate renewable heating systems. Based on participatory processes, templates and handbooks are created to guide other neighbourhoods in founding their own HeatCOOPs. The project combines technical expertise with social innovation, fostering new governance structures for Positive Energy Districts and for community-based decarbonisation of urban heat supply.
HeatCOOP will deliver tested and replicable prototypes for cooperative heat supply in urban areas. Through real-world testing, the project generates practical experience, legal and financial templates and an action plan for founding heating cooperatives. These results will support policymakers, municipalities, and citizens in overcoming barriers to decarbonisation. In the long term, HeatCOOP will help reduce CO₂ emissions, lower energy dependence, and strengthen community participation in the energy transition—contributing to the vision of Positive Energy Districts and the DUT Transition Pathway.
Austria
Czech Republic
Slovenia
Czech Technical University In Prague, Faculty of Civil Engineering, E7 Energie Markt, Analyse Gmbh, Institut Jozef Stefan, Reenag Holding Gmbh, Seven, The Energy Efficiency Center Z.U.
City of Vienna, Department For Energy Planning, Gemeinnützige Familienhäuser - Bau - Und Wohnungsgenossenschaft Registrierte Genossenschaft M.B.H., Municipality of Ivančna Gorica, Municipality of Selnica Ob Dravi, Verein Zur Förderung Der Klimaneutralität Im Kahlenbergerdorf [Klimadörfl]
Contact
Gernot Tscherteu
gt@realitylab.at