Pathways to Sustainable European Energy Systems

 

Home / Pathways STEM : Sub-project 4

This sub-project focuses on the unique possibilities of district heating on the local and regional heating markets in Europe, and on how an expansion of district heating/cooling can lead to substantial conservation of resources as well as opening up for renewable alternatives. If, at the same time as district heating is developed, coordination occurs with development on the user side and reorganization of centralized power production, this can contribute to opportunities for both effectivization at the end-user and expansion of heating power. Within the sub-project we will also try to understand the causes of – and analyze how one can deal with – the fact that certain kinds of energy, such as district heating in many European countries, are "undeservedly unpopular".

Strengthening the Pathways project in the area of district heating gives Sweden a unique chance to show and exploit the competence which we have built up with district heating, and to apply it on the European level. By contrast, the research on district heating in Europe is very limited.

Research questions

We will analyze the following research questions in this sub-project:
• To what extent can Europe's 5,000 district heating systems, together with new ones, contribute to sustainable development?

• In what degree can sequential supply chains (e.g. where industrial waste heat, or heat from waste incineration, is utilized in the district heating systems) be a path to sustainable development in Europe?

• How can one take best advantage of the potential for energy effectivization on the user side in expansion of district heating? We must also have a sufficiently good picture of the develop-ment on the user side:

• Heat densities/heat atlas. Knowledge of heat density is very important in the expansion of district heating.

• Energy effectivization. The opportunities for effectivization are especially great with a change of heating.

• Growth of need for heating: how large can the need become and where does the growth occur? In many European countries, district heating is unjustifiably neglected as a bearer of energy. For example, the IEA writes: "often overlooked is the critical role that District Heating and Cooling can play in meeting the GHG goals…" (www.iea.org). There are actually few rational economic or technical reasons for this, and instead there seems to be an inherited pattern of thought in various societies as to which kinds of energy are popular and which are not.

• Within the framework of this sub-project, we therefore want partly to understand why different kinds of energy vary in popularity between societies/countries, and partly to investigate how one can deal with the fact that certain kinds of energy – such as district heating in many European countries – have become undeservedly unpopular.

 

Method

We will make use of technical/economic system analysis (statistical and model analysis) as well as social-scientific methods (e.g. questionnaires and interviews) in this part of the project. We have direct access to both Ecoheatcool and the Pathways project's extensive models and statistical databases.

 

PARTICIPATING RESEARCHERS:

Sven Werner, Högskolan Halmstad
Urban Persson, Chalmers / Högskolan Halmstad
Åsa Boholm, Social Anthropology and CEFOS, Göteborgs University ;