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Covenant of Mayors - Europe
  • News article
  • 25 October 2024

District Heating: The essential base for a successful detox

Cities can detoxify their heating systems broadly with collective district heating (DHC). Though a significant endeavour, renovating, developing, or expanding DHC in urban areas will ensure long-term, affordable and large-scale low-carbon energy use.

Heat
Heating & Cooling
Cities Heat Detox
Mitigation

Our reliance on fossil fuels for heating our cities harms the environment, public health, and society. In Europe, fossil-fuel-based heating—still used in 72% of buildings—drives climate change, energy insecurity, and worsening air quality.

However, cities don’t need to burn toxic sources to warm citizens’ homes! Through collective solutions such as district heating, they have the power to detox their heat on a large scale by massively shifting towards cleaner, more modern, and sustainable heating systems.  

While district heating requires significant investment, it’s one of the most impactful steps cities can take toward decarbonisation. Across Europe, cities are turning to district heating—by renovating, expanding, or building new systems—to drastically cut emissions and boost their city’s health. Salaspils, in Latvia, for instance, managed to reduce 88% of its heat-related emissions by feeding renewable sources into its district heating system!

The Cities Heat Detox unites cities committed to transitioning from fossil-fuel heating, with district heating as a cornerstone of cleaner, healthier energy solutions.

For a successful detox, we suggest three steps: 1) Knowing your heat, 2) Opting for a full-city Detox and 3) Cleansing your heat. Today, we zoom in on the second step. 

Full-city Detox

District heating and cooling systems are a key tool in achieving a successful heat detox, as they give municipalities the power to more easily substitute fossil fuel consumption for cleaner sources of energy.  

What’s more, district heating networks have also become increasingly efficient, making it easier than ever to integrate renewable technologies. This is because better insulated buildings and efforts to reduce thermal losses decrease heat demand, allowing these networks to operate at lower temperatures. In turn, the supply’s lower temperature makes it more cost-efficient to integrate renewable sources of heat, like geothermal, waste heat, and heat pumps. 

District heating is a somewhat known approach in Europe. Across the continent, district heating pipes extend to 190.000 kilometres – that would be enough to take us halfway to the moon! But while some countries are quite familiar with DHC, others are still learning and implementing their very first networks. And whereas some populations trust and understand this approach, others are more cautious and less enthusiastic due to preconceptions or historical mismanagements. Our campaign highlights cases in all these different contexts, showing that a full-city detox is possible and desirable for all!

District heating as a new approach: challenges and opportunities

Much like its fellow Southern countries, Spain has little experience with district heating and cooling. DHC covers a very small part of the heat demand, although there has been a growth in the power supplied by these networks in the country over the last few years. Valladolid didn’t shy away from this new challenge and embraced district heating as a method to phase out fossil fuels and reach its climate-neutrality goals.

Valladolid’s current heat network covers three out of its six districts, and it will soon be extended to reach 200 kilometres of pipes and 65.000 homes by 2030. As more communities join the network, citizens have responded positively, especially after seeing their heating bills reduced by 30% and benefiting from lower maintenance costs. This has encouraged even more property owners to connect to the heat network.  

Valladolid's Heat Detox

Likewise, in Leuven, Belgium, DHC was unknown, but the city deemed it essential to accelerate the heat transition. Despite being in the “learning curve” with regards to district heating, Leuven kept its ambitious goal of decarbonising heating and is now exploring the possibilities that geothermal energy offers in its detox.

Leuven's Heat Detox

A well-known technology in need of upgrades

Germany is well accustomed to district heating, which currently serves 14% of households and shows a great potential to grow. However, even if having district heating is a helpful advantage, the detox is not complete if we don’t fuel the network with clean sources!

Indeed, Heidelberg’s district heating network, which already supplies about a half of the city’s dwellings, will be largely expanded by 2040, and will fully decouple from fossil fuels by 2030. To achieve this, the city is counting on geothermal, solar thermal, waste heat, biomass and biogas, and is also using water and air-based sources.

Heidelberg's Heat Detox

The future of district heating: a fully decarbonised, multifunctional network

Much like in other Northern countries, where winters can get really cold, district heating is an essential feature in Estonian cities. The 2023 EU Green Capital, Tallinn, is a champion when it comes to this technology, with one of the largest district heating systems (with 520 kilometres of pipes), whose supply is already 70% decarbonised.

Aware of the environmental impact and price volatility associated with natural gas and fossil fuels, the city first developed a plan in 2021 to achieve carbon neutrality. This initiative was then accelerated following the energy crisis of 2022 and the use of natural gas as a geopolitical weapon by Russia. Now, the city is planning to decouple completely from gas in its DHC by 2030, focusing on new renewable sources, like a solar thermal park and heat pumps in the sea.  

Moreover, as summers get progressively warmer, Tallinn is addressing new demands by building a district cooling network, which will be climate-neutral from its very beginning. This new project started in 2019 and around 5 kilometres have already been built in the city centre. 

Tallinn's Heat Detox

What’s your heat detox like?

If you’re curious to see what your heat detox looks like and want to share it with your citizens, be sure to explore our interactive tool and build your own detox recipe.

In its diverse detox mix, Heidelberg has mint (geothermal), lemon (solar thermal), cucumber (waste heat) and kale (biomass), as well as blueberries and chia seeds (water-based and air-based sources), and some nuts (biogas) as well!

 

Be a part of the campaign!

Does your city’s detox mix include district heating? Whether you’re just starting with this approach, or you’re well advanced, be sure to share your story with the rest of the community!

Let your journey be an inspiration to other cities and get featured on our map by

For more information, visit our webpage and follow the #CitiesHeatDetox and #HealthyHeat4Cities on social media.

For regular updates, SUBSCRIBE TO THE CAMPAIGN.

 

Sources

https://api.euroheat.org/uploads/DHC_Market_Outlook_Insights_Trends_2023_81498577a7.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352484720316280

 

 

Details

Publication date
25 October 2024