Programme Outline:
Day One: Tuesday, 9 October 2012
The first day will include an Opening and Plenary session in the morning, which will be followed by parallel sessions in the afternoon on: “Smart Comfort for Cities”, “Solar District Heating”, and “Smart Cooling”, as well as a workshop on “New Projects”. These sessions will help to show and discuss how existing and future technologies and concepts, including solar thermal technologies, District Cooling, and the concept of “smart cities”,  can be integrated through DHC into local energy planning in order to make cities, industries, and other energy customers smarter and greener. Successful case studies from European cities that have integrated sustainable DHC into their energy mix will be presented.  A Panel Debate at the end of the day will help to facilitate discussion.
The “DHC+ Student Awards” will also officially be launched at the end of the first day, thus presenting an opportunity to inform participating students and stakeholders about this international initiative, which aims to highlight outstanding and original contributions to District Heating and Cooling (DHC) related research. This international competition is open to all undergraduate or post-graduate students registered in an accredited institution of higher education in Europe. The final Awards ceremony will take place in Vienna, Austria in 2013.
An evening function is desirable in order to welcome participants to Brussels and provide them with an additional opportunity to network with each other.

Day Two: Wednesday 10 October 2012
Day two will feature two sessions on the Ecoheat4cities project, which promotes awareness and knowledge-based acceptance of District Heating and Cooling systems through the establishment of a voluntary green heating and cooling label. The label will provide useful information on key energy related parameters of DHC systems to interested stakeholders throughout Europe and participating countries. The three labeling criteria: Renewability, Resource efficiency, and CO2 efficiency/emissions reflect the aims of the EU 2020-targets and will thus enable stakeholders from all over Europe to see and show how DHC can contribute to reaching the EU’s energy targets and assess DHC as a competitive and viable option in Europe’s heating and cooling market.
This will be the final conference for the ecoheat4cities project, where project results will be presented. The conference will be focused on cities and companies, and will also include a policy networking lunch.
In parallel, we plan to hold a DHC+ workshop on Education and Training to discuss other relevant initiatives we have to promote the development and application of needed skills in DHC on the European and international level.