The activities of ConnectHeat will be focused on the neighbourhood of the Faculty of Mining, Geology and Petroleum Engineering, located in Zagreb’s city centre. The Faculty employs more than 150 people and more than 800 students attend the classes. Zagreb has a district heating system based mostly on natural gas. The Faculty is connected to the natural gas distribution network. The current level of annual heat consumption is 24,659 MWh and calculated CO2 emissions amount to 5,430 t/year. None of the energy consumed is covered by RES and the Faculty is looking into possibilities to use the existing and new geothermal sources for heating.

Ambition, vision and expected objectives

1. To analyse the potential of the geothermal wells within the Faculty’s area and to identify scalable business models for utilising the geothermal potential in the area;
2. To analyse the technical and economic feasibility for the development of a small geothermal-based district heating network in the urban neighbourhood and to co-create a viable model for citizen participation in the implementation of the developed system;
3. To support the local community energy project in the engagement of citizens and local stakeholders in the development of the system model and the overall energy transition of their community and region.