Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Overview

The City of Plovdiv is the second largest city in Bulgaria, with a population of over 376,000. Plovdiv developed as an industrial centre, but today it is also a business, cultural and historical site. The city has a central heating network based on combined heat and power (CHP) and natural gas. Unfortunately, due to the constantly increasing prices of energy, the users have been quitting the centralised network and are adopting individual means of heating and cooling – mostly air conditioning, electrical heaters and ventilation, and even wood and coal. The final energy consumption of Plovdiv is around 2.2 TWh/year of which 59% is due to the residential sector and 35% to the industry sector. CO2 emissions are around 1,055,900 t CO2/year of which 66% are due to the residential sector.

Our thermal energy community will consist of several passive house owners who will produce, share and consume renewable energy for heating and cooling of their homes. The Thermal Energy Community’s main objective is to support clean energy transition by decentralisation of power production and distribution and promoting a more sustainable energy production and consumption model. It also aims to contribute to increasing public acceptance of renewable energy projects and make it easier to attract private investments in the clean energy transition. Some of the benefits of the Plovdiv energy community will be:

• high energy efficiency of their heat and cooling system, respectively low electricity bills,
• Independent power supply. There is no risk to the security of supply (as happened with gas for example) and the price does not depend on the market price of fuel/electricity,
• Improved air quality in the region, respectively in the country

Technologies used

Heating and cooling will be supplied by geothermal installation with ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and solar thermal collectors.


Ambition, vision and expected objectives

  1. To establish a Bold Energy City Vision for its smart and sustainable energy transition to RES in the H&C according to a participative approach to foster the dialogue between local energy market actors and stakeholders to improve their cooperation for concrete actions implementation.
  2. To support decentralised small-scale H&C alternatives and prosuming scenarios based on cooperative approaches and citizen-led initiatives in the city of Plovdiv and its surrounding settlements.
  3. To establish one-stop shops for renovation and heating services to mobilise and empower the citizens to undertake bold energy actions to improve their energy efficiency and independence.

Further reading

Energy Agency of Plovdiv (eap-save.eu)