This pre-study presents the findings concerning a considerable outlined expansion of the district heating sector within the current EU27 member states until 2050. Heat deliveries are presumed to grow by a factor of 2.1 until 2030 and by a factor of 3.3 until 2050.

The current energy policy context is that the latest energy communication from the European Commission (Energy Roadmap 2050) contains only a very modest growth in the future for district heating systems and additional industrial heat use from industrial CHP plants. A small increase is foreseen for industrial demands, while heat deliveries to the residential and service sectors are expected to decrease. In total, the heat delivered is expected to increase by less than one per cent per year, giving a total increase of 20% until 2030 and of 40% until 2050.

In this prestudy, more ambitious growth rates are assessed for district heating in the EU27 between 2010 and 2050. The chosen methodology in this pre-study contains a combination of hour-by-hour energy modelling of the EU27 energy system and mapping of local conditions, which is essential for district heating analysis. However, the link between these two actions has not been fully utilised in this pre-study due to the limited working time available: The mapping action has only indicated the input to the energy modelling action.