Energy Transition
Germany Eyes Big Expansion of District Heating
The German government wants to get 100,000 homes a year connected to district heating networks run on renewable energy.
Jun 13, 2023
That was the message at a summit with thirty heating associations and others in the sector in Berlin.
“The participants at today’s meeting have reiterated that by 2030 half of the heat in the networks should be climate-neutral,” said German Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck. “The expansion and reconfiguration of dstrict heating is crucial to providing people with affordable heating while simultaneously achieving our climate goals.”
At present, only around 14 percent of Germany’s 43 million households use district heating. By comparison, that figure in neighboring Denmark is 65 percent. Germany’s municipal utilities companies, which operate 95 percent of the country’s district heating networks, see significant growth potential.
“We think it’s posible to triple the market share of district heating by 2045,” Ingbert Liebing, the head of the Association of Municipal Companies (VKU) told business newspaper Handelsblatt.
