District Energy in Sweden

Country Profiles
15 November 2019

There is no designated market for district heating and cooling in Sweden. District heating and cooling operations compete with whatever alternatives, such as ground heat pumps, that are available on the local markets for heating and cooling. The heating market, as a whole, caters to a net heat demand of approx. 100 TWh per year and turns over approx. 100 billion SEK (approx. €9.4 billion) per year.

District heating accounts for half of the net demand. It dominates the business to business segment with over 90% of the market share for multi-dwelling buildings and around 80% of the market share for non-residential buildings.

Electrical heating and biomass dominate the market segment for one and two apartment dwellings with market shares of 48% and 33%, respectively. In this segment, district heating has a market share of 17% (2017).

DC holds an estimated market share of approx. 25% of the climatization of public and commercial buildings. The Swedish government is currently preparing a District cooling act, due to their interpretation of the Energy Efficiency Directive, articles 9 and 10. It is planned to be proposed to the parliament in spring 2020.

Installed capacity in CHP was more or less the same until 2017 (approx. 3600 MW), but decreased in 2017, following the closing of Öresundsverket (440 MW of electricity), a large gas-fired unit in the south of Sweden. The plant entered into production as late as 2009, so it was reasonably new. The reasons were poor profitability due to low electricity prices and access to alternative energy sources for district heating in the Malmö region.

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Sweden is also involved in our #DHCities?️ initiative:

? – Click here to read more about their story!

In addition, the Swedish city of Växjö is also featured in this initiative. For more information on the impact of district energy at a local level, explore our #DHCities?️ map, featuring DHC decarbonisation success stories from over 35 European cities: euroheat.org/map

Useful links:
Swedish District Heating Association