When district heating makes replacing the heating system superfluous

Berlin Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) wants to make progress with the expansion and construction of heating networks on the way to a climate-neutral building stock. The expansion of the heating networks is “very important in order to provide the citizens with affordable, renewable heat and at the same time to achieve our climate protection goals,” said Habeck on Monday afternoon after a meeting with representatives of 30 associations. Habeck announced that in future 100,000 buildings should be connected to heating networks every year.

Six out of 43 million households in Germany are currently supplied with district heating. This corresponds to a market share of 14 percent. Other countries are much further along. The proportion of district heating in Denmark is 65 percent.

The municipal utilities, which operate around 90 percent of the heating networks in Germany, are confident that district heating will increase its market share. “We think that district heating’s market share could triple by 2045,” said Ingbert Liebing, Managing Director of the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU), the Handelsblatt.