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Renewable energy resources (RES) have exceptional importance in the principles of sustainabledevelopment and energy management. Using the practically unlimited internal heat of the Earth,geothermal energy has one of the highest potentials among all renewables to meet these principlesand related challenges. It should be pointed out that Central and Eastern European countries also havegeothermal resources suitable for a wide range of applications, including a significant heating sector. However, to date they have either remained unexploited due to several reasons or their use has beencarried out in an unsustainable manner; in some cases geothermal district heating projects lack theenergy efficiency and sustainability components when, as often is the case, spent water is notreinjected back into the reservoirs but is instead released to surface waters. The EU–supported project “Geothermal communities – demonstrating the cascaded use of geothermalenergy for district heating with small scale RES integration and retrofitting measures”, GEOCOM,carried out in 2010–2015 (www.geothermalcommunities.eu) was an initiative to promote the wideruse of geothermal energy in sustainable and innovative ways. The key activities and issues covered by the GEOCOM project were as follows: o Pilot scale demonstration works on geothermal energy applications for heating in threedifferent municipalities: Galanta (Slovakia), Montieri (Italy), and M.rahalom (Hungary).Geothermal uses were integrated with some other RES in order to outline ways of moreefficient and more sustainable energy production. In some cases an additional focus was thetrapping of methane from ground water for energy production. For all pilot installations theenergy efficiency measures were applied by thermal retrofitting and optimisation. An efficientmonitoring system was applied to the demonstration activities; o Technological research on the integration, optimisation and applications of energy systems,to help the demonstration activities of the project become more efficient; o Socio– economic research on the public perception and understanding of geothermal energy,other renewables and measures promoting the rational use of energy to ease the preparationof similar future projects; o Transboundary issues on the exploitation of geothermal energy (based on the example of thegeothermal reservoirs situated within the territories of Hungary and Serbia); o Pro-active training and dissemination activities; o Initiating and facilitating the networking of interested communities in the GEOCOM and otherEuropean countries by setting up the Mayors Geothermal Club. The direct objective of the GEOCOM project was to demonstrate succesful, innovative and inspiringexamples of the utilisation of geothermal energy for heat generation employing cutting-edge,environmentally sustainable and cost competitive technologies combined with innovative energyefficiency measures, integration with other renewable energy sources and retrofitting at threedifferent pilot– sites (municipalities) listed above. These pilot scale geothermal energy applications are given as examples of good practices in thisHandbook. All three cases present intermediary phases between ongoing investments and plannedfuture projects that will take into account the lessons learned from the pilot phases. The key results achieved thanks to the GEOCOM works in pilot sites are highlighted below.

Renewable energy resources (RES) have exceptional importance in the principles of sustainable development and energy management. Using the practically unlimited internal heat of the Earth, geothermal energy has one of the highest potentials among all renewables to meet these principles and related challenges. It should be pointed out that Central and Eastern European countries also have geothermal resources suitable for a wide range of applications, including a significant heating sector. However, to date they have either remained unexploited due to several reasons or their use has been carried out in an unsustainable manner; in some cases geothermal district heating projects lack the energy efficiency and sustainability components when, as often is the case, spent water is not reinjected back into the reservoirs but is instead released to surface waters. The EU–supported project “Geothermal communities – demonstrating the cascaded use of geothermal energy for district heating with small scale RES integration and retrofitting measures”, GEOCOM, carried out in 2010–2015 (www.geothermalcommunities.eu) was an initiative to promote the wider use of geothermal energy in sustainable and innovative ways. The key activities and issues covered by the GEOCOM project were as follows: o Pilot scale demonstration works on geothermal energy applications for heating in three different municipalities: Galanta (Slovakia), Montieri (Italy), and M.rahalom (Hungary). Geothermal uses were integrated with some other RES in order to outline ways of more efficient and more sustainable energy production. In some cases an additional focus was the trapping of methane from ground water for energy production. For all pilot installations the energy efficiency measures were applied by thermal retrofitting and optimisation. An efficient monitoring system was applied to the demonstration activities; o Technological research on the integration, optimisation and applications of energy systems, to help the demonstration activities of the project become more efficient; o Socio– economic research on the public perception and understanding of geothermal energy, other renewables and measures promoting the rational use of energy to ease the preparation of similar future projects; o Transboundary issues on the exploitation of geothermal energy (based on the example of the geothermal reservoirs situated within the territories of Hungary and Serbia); o Pro-active training and dissemination activities; o Initiating and facilitating the networking of interested communities in the GEOCOM and other European countries by setting up the Mayors Geothermal Club. The direct objective of the GEOCOM project was to demonstrate succesful, innovative and inspiring examples of the utilisation of geothermal energy for heat generation employing cutting-edge, environmentally sustainable and cost competitive technologies combined with innovative energy efficiency measures, integration with other renewable energy sources and retrofitting at three different pilot– sites (municipalities) listed above. These pilot scale geothermal energy applications are given as examples of good practices in this Handbook. All three cases present intermediary phases between ongoing investments and planned future projects that will take into account the lessons learned from the pilot phases. The key results achieved thanks to the GEOCOM works in pilot sites are highlighted below., FP7

The MUSE project investigates resources and possible conflicts of use associated with the application of shallow geothermal energy (SGE) in the European urban areas and delivers the key geoscientific subsurface data to the stakeholders via a user-friendly web based GeoERA information platform (GIP). The assessment of geothermal resources and conflicts of use will lead to the development of management strategies considering both the efficient planning and monitoring of environmental impacts to feed into the general framework strategies of cities like Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs). The developed methods and approaches will be tested and evaluated together with support from the local stakeholders for 14 urban pilot areas across Europe, representative for different conditions of SGE use. The individual pilot areas show high diversity in terms of geology, hydrogeology and climate thus have a wide range of heating and cooling degree day characteristics, making the project outcomes and shared learnings relevant to the whole of Europe and beyond. The project capitalises upon the existing knowledge, identifying and closing specific knowledge gaps and providing the joint proposals on methodologies, criteria and concepts on SGE management. The project also adapts the current workflows focusing on local scale investigations suitable for densely-populated urban areas, where the national heating and cooling demand is generally highest, and which will represent the most important SGE market in the future. The planned outcomes of the project represent a comprehensive collection of methods, approaches and tools, which can be transferred to other urban regions in Europe and adapted by other organizations. The pilot area in Poland covers the selected parts of the capital city area of Warsaw. The planned activities will focus on verification and analysis of geological and hydrogeological data coming from the data bases the operated by the Polish Geological Institute – National Research Institute. The interpolation of data will enable the elaboration of maps for different depth intervals, including such maps as: the maps of shallow geothermal energy potential, geological maps, hydrogeological maps, and use conflicts maps.