The Renewable Thermal Collaborative
The Renewable Thermal Collaborative (RTC) serves as the leading coalition for organizations that are committed to scaling up renewable heating and cooling at their facilities and dramatically cutting carbon emissions. RTC members recognize the growing demand and necessity for renewable heating and cooling and the urgent need to meet this demand in a manner that delivers sustainable, cost-competitive options at scale.
The RTC members include manufacturers and state and local governments. The RTC sponsors are renewable thermal suppliers, producers, and professional service firms that provide important institutional support for the RTC’s work to advance renewable thermal solutions for large customers
The Thermal Opportunity
Energy used for heating and cooling comprises approximately 50 percent of total global final energy demand and 39 percent of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. In the United States, heating and cooling account for more than 25 percent of total energy use across residential, commercial, and industrial sectors at a cost of $270 billion annually. Despite its large energy and carbon footprint and its significant potential to reduce carbon emissions, the use of renewable energy for heating and cooling applications, including biomass, biogas, geothermal, landfill gas, renewable electrification, renewable hydrogen, and solar thermal, has received relatively little attention compared with renewable electricity.
50% of global final energy is comprised of thermal energy use
39% of GHG emissions from energy related sources can be attributed to heating and cooling
25% of total energy use in the U.S. comes from thermal energy
Heating and cooling costs $270 billion annually in the U.S.
Renewable thermal energy has received very little attention to date
Publications
