Promoting shallow geothermal heating/cooling for existing residential buildings in the EU

Almost 75% of the EU's existing residential building is energy inefficient. However, currently, only about 1% of the existing residential building is renovated each year. Although some studies have considered using shallow geothermal to provide heating/cooling to promote the deep energy-saving renovation of existing residential buildings, there is still a small-scale and low renovation rate in practice. The main reasons include residents' lack of cooperation, high investment costs, unawareness of technology, low subsidies, ineffective incentives, lack of motivation from technology & services suppliers, low-profit margins, market & institutional barriers, etc. This project aims to develop an efficient incentive mechanism of promoting shallow geothermal heating/cooling for existing residential buildings (SGHCERB) to improve its low energy-saving renovation rate in the EU. First, this project will investigate the potential cooperation willingness, and driving forces of different stakeholders (i.e., governments, technology & services suppliers, and householders) for promoting SGHCERB from a European perspective. Then, this project will develop a novel multi-agent behavioral game model that can satisfy all involved stakeholders to achieve win-win cooperation. This model will form this basis for the efficient incentive mechanisms that can simultaneously promote SGHCERB and achieve the benefits balance for different stakeholders. In addition, this project will provide specific policy optimization suggestions for local governments to improve the overall implementation efficiency of SGHCERB in accordance with local conditions. This project will help to speed up the EU in achieving CO2 emission target proposed in the Climate & Energy Framework for 2030.