District heating is one of the technologies that can contribute to the decarbonisation of the European heat sector. Nonetheless, these infrastructures only deliver about a tenth of the heat demands in the continent. Therefore, it is essential to assess the expansion potential of these systems and to identify which areas should be target for further investigations, which calls for easy-to-use and straightforward methods such as Persson & Werner's network capital cost model. Pivotal parameters of the model are the effective width, a metric of trench length by land area, alongside the average pipe diameter and the linear heat density. This study has carried out an in-depth analysis of these crucial parameters with respect to both distribution and service pipes in a large Danish district heating network, which has allowed to explore the behaviour of effective width in a broad range of building densities and derive new equations for both effective width and average pipe diameter. The model has subsequently been validated in another large network in Denmark and several minor districts in the same country, showing the accuracy of the model on an aggregated level. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd.

The Pan-European Thermal Atlas Peta is an online visualization tool for spatial data. Version 5.1 was launched in 2020 with a first set of layers for the EU27+UK, which related to energy demands in the base year and first, intermediate project results regarding energy efficiency potentials. With the update to version 5.2, Peta was complemented with layers based on the scenarios studied in different sEEnergies tasks, completed after the launch of Peta 5.1. As a result, Peta 5.2 shows energy demand and energy efficiency data for residential and service sector buildings as well as for industry and transport for different scenarios, focusing on the status-quo and the scenario year 2050, while also containing 2030 data.

Throughout the Heat Roadmap Europe projects, Peta has been developed as an information system for the heat sector. Its main content related to district heating grid investment costs, district heating area demarcations and supply options. The current version 5.2 features new layers that include future heat demands and district heating development costs for distribution and service pipe investment costs, as well as energy efficiency potentials of the industry and transport sectors.

In a new layer group Peta 5.2 presents the results of spatial analyses, for example the allocation of excess heat to urban areas as well as an index that combines energy efficiency potentials across sectors and technologies.

Peta 5.2 can be accessed via the following URL:https://tinyurl.com/peta5seenergies, while the geospatial data can be accessed through thesEEnergies Open Data Hub: https://s-eenergies-open-data-euf.hub.arcgis.com/. Furthermore, Story Maps add an additional dimension to the dissemination of project results (accessible here: https://tinyurl.com/sEEnergiesStorymaps). 

The Pan-European Thermal Atlas version 5.2 (Peta, version 5.2). Peta is an online visualization tool for spatial data relating to energy efficiency in buildings, industry, and transport sectors. Developed as part of the sEEnergies project. Copyright Flensburg, Halmstad and Aalborg Universities 2022. 

This report aims to present the results of the work carried out within the sEEnergies project pertaining to estimating construction costs of new district heating networks in France.

This project has followed a similar methodology to Heat Roadmap Europe when estimating the costs of district heating systems. Nonetheless, several improvements have been introduced to attain more realistic results. On the one hand, it has been carried out a detailed geographic analysis of two large Danish networks so the necessary pipe length can be better appraised. Moreover, both the distribution network and service pipes have been taken into consideration. On the other hand, pipe construction cost data from each country has been used to the maximum extent possible.  

This part of the project has only focused on the pipe network and has not taken into account other elements for the development of a district heating system, such as heat supply plants or the connections to the heat demands via a substation. 

The results for France show that the country has a significant potential for District Heating expansion. Approximately a quarter of the total heat demand (28%) could be supplied with a cost lower than 20 €/MWh and nearly half of the heat demand (47%) would be economically viable with a higher marginal cost of 30 €/MWh. Nonetheless, there is significant regional variation. For instance, for a marginal cost threshold of 20 €/MWh, Paris could cover nearly the entire heat demand and the other départements of the petite couronne de París, could reach penetration rates above 70%. On the contrary, the 12 least dense départements would not be able to deliver more than 10% of the heat demand, having the département of Vendée the lowest potential with merely 3%. 

This report aims to present the results of the work carried out within the sEEnergies project pertaining to estimating construction costs of new district heating networks in Germany.

This project has followed a similar methodology to Heat Roadmap Europe when estimating the costs of district heating systems. Nonetheless, several improvements have been introduced to attain more realistic results. On the one hand, it has been carried out a detailed geographic analysis of two large Danish networks so the necessary pipe length can be better appraised. Moreover, both the distribution network and service pipes have been taken into consideration. On the other hand, pipe construction cost data from each country has been used to the maximum extent possible.  

This part of the project has only focused on the pipe network and has not taken into account other elements for the development of a district heating system, such as heat supply plants or the connections to the heat demands via a substation. 

The results for Germany show that the country has a significant potential for District Heating expansion. Approximately a quarter of the total heat demand could be supplied with a cost lower than 20 €/MWh and nearly half of the heat demand would be economically viable with a higher marginal cost of 30 €/MWh. Nonetheless, there is significant regional variation, and whilst the most urban districts (kreise) could reach penetration rates above 70% for a marginal cost of 20 €/MWh, the least dense would fall below 10% of the heat demand. 

The present report accounts for the spatial models of energy efficiency and the geospatial analysis carried out to quantify and locate energy efficiency potentials across sectors. In the building sector, future heat demands on national scales are being distributed using the age class of built-up areas and innovative models of future population distribution. District heat distribution capital costs combined with heat demand densities allow for the assessment of economic potentials of future district heating. Efficiency potentials in the transport and industrial sectors have been associated to locations, and transmission infrastructures have been mapped. Combining all these aspects, spatial analytics help understanding the opportunities and constraints that arise from the geography of energy systems. Energy efficiency in the three sectors has been mapped at different scales. Cost curves for district heating have been prepared for member states. For use in energy systems analysis, a matrix has been developed that relates energy efficiency in buildings and district heating potentials. Areas of interest for the conversion of natural gas to district heating have been mapped, combining present gas use with infrastructural aspects. Local potentials of district heating have been quantified for almost 150,000 settlements, and potential heat sources from industrial and wastewater treatment plants as well as locally available renewable energy sources have been allocated to potential district heating areas. Finally, to visualise and compare energy efficiency across sectors, technologies, and countries, the sEEnergies Index shows local potentials for improving energy efficiency and utilising synergies in all settlements of the EU27 plus the UK. In conclusion, the report documents how dissemination can be facilitated using the online geospatial information and mapping applications prepared in the sEEnergies Project.   

District heating is an important technology for decarbonizing the heating supply in urban areas since it enables the recovery of waste heat that would otherwise be wasted and the cost-effective utilization of renewable heat. Nonetheless, the current general extent of these systems in Europe is very low, hence the need for simple methods and parameters to estimate their cost and feasibility on a large scale. One of these cost parameters is the Effective Width, which enables a first order approximation of the total pipe length in a given area. This concept, in conjunction with the average pipe diameter in the area, permits the determination of the network’s capital cost. However, previous research of Effective Width has relied on a small set of cases and has not contemplated service pipes. Therefore, there is need for a closer look and a deeper understanding of the underlying phenomena that influences this parameter. This study has analysed several Scandinavian District Heating Systems in detail and provides new evidence on the relation between Effective Width and the urban environment for both distribution and service pipes.

The future population distribution informs decisions on investment in district heating. Across Europe, demographic change has been associated with structural changes of the past. Trends towards urban or rural migration, urban sprawl or the depopulation of city centers will continue. Using gridded population data since 1990, past development is mapped using spatial disaggregation to grid cells by intensity of urban development. An empirical method proposed captures increment of population in each grid cell and relates it to the focal statistics of the cell neighbourhood. A positive population trend in populated cells leads to a future population increase and a spill over into new development areas, while a negative trend leads to lower future population. New areas are modelled based on the principles of proximity and similarity using neighbourhood trends and land cover suitability, adjusted to national and regional population trends. The result is a set of future 1-hectare population grids, which have been used to model the distribution of future heat demands. The distribution of heat demand densities, the zoning of heat supply, and the potential for individual heat pumps have been modelled. Results show that reductions of heat demands and demographic developments leave a window of opportunities to develop heating infrastructures with known technology in the present decade, after which 4th Generation District Heat technology is required to decarbonise the heating sector.

This work studies the transformation of energy grids of the European Union (EU) in the frame of the energy transition. Three energy grid types are considered namely the electricity, thermal and gas grids. Regarding electricity grids, we investigate the required reinforcements of the low-voltage networks (e.g. replacing the distribution transformer by one of higher nominal power, replacing cables by cables of larger cross-section) in order to integrate residential low-carbon technologies such as heat pumps, photovoltaic systems and electric vehicles. To do so, we develop a methodology for the quantification of EU low-voltage grid reinforcement costs following residential low-carbon technologies integration. This methodology uses urbanisation data to determine the share of dwellings in rural and urban areas in EU28 countries (EU27 + United Kingdom). It is also based on a model that quantifies the grid reinforcement cost as a function of the low-carbon technologies integration scenario for representative rural and urban grids. This model is composed of three sub-models, namely the dwelling, grid and economic models. We also collected data from 24 open access grids (i.e. grids of which the specifications are freely accessible online) and 23 scientific articles and reports to determine the parameter values of the grid and economic models for EU28 countries. Finally, we provide example applications that illustrate the methodology by computing the grid reinforcement costs from heat pumps and photovoltaic systems integration in Belgium and Italy. Results indicate that, in the largest majority of cases, both for Belgian and Italian grids, the reinforcement cost per dwelling remains below 350 € per dwelling (total cost for the whole lifespan of 33 years). The only case where more significant reinforcement costs occurred (> 350 €/dwelling and up to 1150 €/dwelling) is for the Belgian rural grid with heat pump integration rates larger than 40%. When it comes to thermal grids, we investigate the deployment of district heating, a heat supply technology that by its fundamental idea incorporates energy efficiency and thus can trigger important greenhouse gas emissions reduction. For this purpose, we proposed an approach to map the cost of thermal grids deployment per heat demand unit in the EU. This approach is based on the concept of representative thermal grids which corresponds to a principal equation that defines the distribution capital costs as the ratio of empirically derived specific investments costs and the linear heat density. In the sEEnergies project, this concept is expanded to comprise better cost models based on actual district heating network layouts at the spatial resolution of 1 hectare. While in the Heat Roadmap Europe project, the variables were generated only for the 14 EU Member States with largest annual volumes of building heat demands, the present approach covers all EU27 Member States plus United Kingdom. In this deliverable, we focus on the current year, while the deliverable 4.5 focuses on the future years. Regarding gas grids, we present the key technical and economic characteristics of the existing gas grids and storages in the EU28 countries. We focus not only on infrastructure for natural gas but also for biogas, biomethane, syngas and hydrogen, which could play an important role in the decrease of greenhouse gas emissions. This techno-economic review provides important information to assess the cost of retrofitting and developing gas grids depending on the decarbonisation scenarios.