KeepWarm training series successfully concluded in Latvia

20 May 2019

KeepWarm training series successfully concluded in Latvia

The series of trainings in the framework of the KeepWarm project has been concluded in Latvia, with the last topic: business plan elaboration. Among others, participants had a practical lecture on the elaboration of a technical feasibility study. They also made a study visit to the inspiring district heating company “Salaspils Siltums”.

KeepWarm partner in Latvia, Zemgale Regional Energy agency (ZREA), has been organising trainings for district heating system (DHS) operator employees on different topics since September 2018. They covered technical issues, the use of renewable energy sources (RES) and waste as fuel, but also managerial, organisational and financial concerns. The trainings were combined with study visits to district heating companies that are advanced in their operation and could share their experience on development and modernisation. In total ZREA held 15 days of trainings and study visits, or 91,5 hours of training with overall 284 participants, representing a total of 92 individual participants. Latvia’s three pilot DHS participated in all training sessions, plus 15 invited DHS.

On 24-25 April 2019 and 15-16 May 2019, ZREA organised a final four days of training on financial issues, covering topics such as innovative financing, viability of RES and waste heat, financial support and funding sources, economic feasibility analysis and business planning. The two days of lectures were combined with two study trips to “Liepajas Energija” biomass cogeneration station in Liepaja city and a study trip to “Salaspils Siltums”, the district heating provider in Salaspils city. Both companies demonstrated advanced competence in financial and technical issues. Liepajas energija successfully optimised the company’s work and is using advanced programmes for operating cogeneration station’s work. In Salaspils Siltums participants got really inspired by the achievements of the company regarding the modernisation their DHS and an ambitious sun collector installation project in their district heating system, which is now ongoing. With the aim to increase the use of renewable energy in district heating, a decision was taken to install 1720 solar collectors on an area of 6.5 ha in combination with a heat storage tank and a 3MW woodchip boiler, which would be able to provide the necessary heating energy consumption in the summer, or one fifth of the total annual heat consumption. More detailed information is available on the country page of Latvia in both English and Latvian and on ZREA’s website.

After the intense training, involved pilot DHS in close cooperation with ZREA and the KeepWarm team will work on the elaboration of technical feasibility studies in order to select DHS for retrofitting and initiate models for further replication of investments.

For short articles about all the trainings conducted by ZREA, please have a look at the country page of Latvia.