HVAC pathway to energy security

Thursday, 19 November 2026

European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Brussels

The Brussels Summit is REHVA's flagship policy event: the moment each year when Europe's HVAC engineering community sits down with the EU institutions to confront the buildings and energy agenda with evidence rather than assumptions.

For the second consecutive year, REHVA is delighted to hold the Summit in partnership with the European Economic and Social Committee, renewing a collaboration that proved its worth in 2025. The EESC's role in connecting organised civil society with the EU institutions aligns naturally with REHVA's own mission, making it the ideal setting for inclusive, evidence-based dialogue at a moment when the credibility of Europe's buildings agenda depends on implementation.

That moment is now. With the EPBD transposition deadline passed on 29 May 2026 and Member States finalising their National Building Renovation Plans, the conversation shifts from designing legislation to delivering it - just as the European Commission's new Heating and Cooling Strategy places the decarbonisation of heating and cooling, around half of EU energy demand and still 70% fossil-fuel based, at the heart of Europe's energy security, affordability, and competitiveness agenda.

The 2026 Summit moves deliberately from the technical, to the political, to the practical:

• Session I - EPBD implementation: the technical side. A bottom-up assessment of where Europe actually stands. Building on an institutional keynote from the EU institutions, the session centres on REHVA's Member State reporting: how zero-emission building requirements, minimum energy performance standards, IEQ provisions, solar-readiness and renovation passports are being written into national codes, where the gaps and divergences lie, and which good practices can guide late-moving countries.
• Session II - The EED and the EU Heating and Cooling Strategy: the policy side. A top-down look at the architecture shaping the next phase of the transition, tempered by the local heating and cooling plans through which it is delivered on the ground. Commission and REHVA keynotes open a debate on how the Strategy translates into concrete market signals: reviving the heat pump market, mobilising the installer workforce, correcting the electricity-to-gas price ratio, and ensuring efficiency cuts bills as well as emissions.
• Session III - From policy to practice. Sponsored by the Horizon Europe project InCUBE, the closing session brings the day down to earth with industrialised renovation projects delivered in Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain: district decarbonisation with ground-source heat pumps in Trento, prefabrication and robotics compressing timelines in Groningen, and participatory renovation with owners still at home in Zaragoza.

Who attends: policy and technical stakeholders from Brussels and beyond - policymakers and officials from the EU institutions and national administrations, national HVAC associations, industry and manufacturers, academics and researchers, standardisation and certification bodies, EU-funded project consortia, and practising engineers, designers and installers from across REHVA's network of more than 120,000 engineers in 26 European countries.

The Brussels Summit opens on 18 November with REHVA's standing committee meetings, by invitation. 

Full agenda and registration to follow.