Intercommunale Leiedal is an inter-municipal association of the 13 cities and municipalities in the region of South West-Flanders (BE). The region has 310,000 inhabitants and is part of the cross-border Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai. As for today, the region is very dependent on fossil energy and has an increasing energy consumption (+25% 2005-2017). However, CO2-emissions are decreasing (-18% 2005-2017). The local energy production is very limited: Only 8% of primary energy used is renewable. 53% of the energy is used for heating, mainly residential and tertiary. Natural gas and heating oil (decreasing shares) are the main energy sources. The share of sustainable energy for heating is limited and includes mainly heat pumps or “traditional biomass” such as wood stoves.

Ambition, vision and expected objectives

1. To fintune the concept of “energy broker”, introduced by Leiedal, acting as a process manager to guide the set up of DHC systems involving all stakehgolders Leiedal introduced the expertise of “energy broker”, aprocess manager to guide the set-up of DHC-systems (organise the workflow, building capacity, setting up cooperation agreements, improve cooperation with the different departments of the cities/municipalities, creating a business model for upscaling, etc.).
2. To create an organisational and financial model in which citizens play a role in the ownership and management of a local district heating, via a community energy model and/or energy cooperative.
3. To integrate district heating in local and regional (urban) planning tools and instruments of spatial policy.