Municipal heat advisory boards

Robert Kneschke_stock.adobe.com

As part of the 2024 Heat Summit, the idea was developed to establish municipal heat advisory boards as committees for the participation of local stakeholders in the municipal heat planning process. Heat advisory boards could pool the local expertise of various stakeholders and thus support the best possible heat planning and implementation. Ideally, the heating advisory board can provide valuable input on local potential and capacities, enabling measures to be implemented more quickly. The heating advisory board could discuss framework conditions, transition scenarios, bridging technologies, resources, time horizons, target scenarios, and their practical implementation, and provide new ideas for accelerating the implementation of measures. The heating advisory board should include representatives of trades related to the heating transition (chamber of trades, district trades association, guilds for plumbing, heating, and ventilation; electrical; carpentry; plasterers; chimney sweeps; glaziers, etc.) and local authorities, supplemented by other local stakeholders such as housing companies, landlords, energy suppliers, heating network operators, and farmers.

As part of the pilot project, municipal heating advisory boards are to be set up in three municipalities in Baden-Württemberg – Heiligkreuzsteinach in the Rhine-Neckar district, Linkenheim-Hochstetten in the Karlsruhe district, and Bodnegg in the Ravensburg district. Over the course of several meetings, the requirements of the local stakeholders involved will be systematically recorded, the areas of competence and interfaces of the heating advisory board with the planning process in the municipality (or executing service providers) will be evaluated, and findings regarding the transferability of formats will be assessed. The aim is to derive recommendations for action from this, which could potentially enable a large number of municipalities to take the first steps towards forming a heating advisory board.