Sustainable cold and heat supply for urban areas by means of district cooling and heating

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Summers are getting hotter due to climate change: both the average outdoor temperature and the number of days with temperatures above 30°C are increasing compared to the long-term average. Due to the heat island effect, this is reflected all the more clearly in the ground-level temperatures in urban areas. As climate change progresses, this phenomenon will intensify in the future. As a result, the need for cooling and air conditioning in non-residential and residential buildings will also increase.

The necessary switch from heat generation for heating networks, which was previously dominated by fossil fuels, to heat pumps offers the potential for a more joint approach to pipeline-based heating and cooling supplies in the future. On the one hand, the geographical proximity makes it possible to utilise the waste heat potential of cooling generation centrally. On the other hand, synergies are created through joint construction measures. 

The project aims to analyse the opportunities and obstacles to the integrative development of heating and cooling networks in Germany. To this end, the future development of urban cooling demand will be analysed and the expansion and new construction requirements for cooling networks derived from this. The potential for integrating large heat pumps into district heating networks will also be analysed. Another focus is on the utilisation of waste heat from data centres and the environmental impact of heat pumps and chillers, particularly with regard to the avoidance of halogenated hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as refrigerants. Depending on the findings, ifeu will compile the results in a guideline for the construction and expansion of cooling networks in conjunction with heating networks.