HeaTogether
The established forms of heat supply, namely conventional large district heating networks on the one side and individual heating systems on the other side, have limited potential for decarbonisation: Existing high-temperature district heating systems are already operating at, or near, their maximum capacity and currently still rely to a large extent on fossil fuels. Furthermore, they require high heat density in the supplied area and are thus not available for urban and suburban area with medium to lower heat densities.
On the other hand, the decarbonisation of individual heating systems in urban and suburban settlement structures also suffers from a number of limitations, mainly space limitations, for example for the installation of (individual) air heat pumps, for drilling geothermal probes, or for the necessary PV installations, as well as economic disadvantages due to the non-utilisation of economies of scale.
Local heating and cooling solutions can fill the gap – we call these solutions neighbourhood heating and cooling (H&C) networks: please see image on the right.
We want to establish different technological options (cold district heat versus low temperature district heat) options for “neighbourhood heat networks”, where the first relies on the supply of cold water e. g. from ground probes or other heat sources, with individual heat pumps in each building, whereas the latter build on one central heat pump and supply at 60-70 °C flow temperature. Within the project, technical solutions, investment plans and business models are developed using the example of several case studies in 4 european countries.
Runtime
July 2025 – June 2028
Funding
EU-Kommission
Partner
e7 GmbH (Österreich),
Urban Innovation Vienna (UIV) – Klima- und Innovationsagentur Wien (Österreich),
DGRV – Deutscher Genossenschafts- und Raiffeisenverband e. V., Bundesgeschäftsstelle Energiegenossenschaften (Deutschland),
Hogeschool Utrecht, Institute Design & Engineering (Niederlande),
SEVEn – Energy efficiency centre (Tschechische Republik)
Contact
Sebastian Blömer
sebastian.bloemer@ifeu.de
+49 (0)6221 4767 28
To profile
Prof. Dr. Martin Pehnt
martin.pehnt@ifeu.de
+49 (0)6221 4767 0
To profile
Dr. Jakob Metz
jakob.metz@ifeu.de
49 (0)6221 4767 98
To profile
Further content:
Energy