Background Report on EU-27 District Heating and Cooling

The purpose of this report is to provide background information on potentials, barriers, best practices, state of the art and measures of promotion of District Heating and Cooling to aid policy making.

Preliminary assessments were performed on the likely cost and impact of adopting an EU wide approach to Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and District Heating- CHP-DH by studying three representative cities (Chapter 17). Looking at the maximum penetration in terms of fossil fuelled power stations it was estimated (Chapter 18) that a capital spend of €319 Billion on CHP-DH infrastructure will reduce heating costs by approximately €51.4 Billion per year and save 5.320 EJ of primary energy. (Subject to the constraints outlined in Chapter 18). This is almost half the EU27 primary energy demand for building heating. This would be greater if the waste heat from existing nuclear stations were considered as this option is feasible also.

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