12th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling

The <strong>12th</strong> <strong>International</strong> <strong>Symposium</strong> on District Heating and Cooling,September 5 th to September 7 th , 2010, Tallinn, Estoniaestablish and maintain relations, as well as ifdisconnections have occurred or may occur. Builtenvironment relates to how common multi-familybuildings are and if these have a central heatingsystem for the whole house. Table I ends with districtheatingproduction and distribution issues. Biomassconsiders domestic biomass supplies andinfrastructure for biomass fuel supply. Waste includescurrent waste management and attitudes towardwaste incineration. CHP concerns regulationshampering CHP production as well as problems inexisting plants. Finally, district heating distribution inTable I encompasses difficulties with building networksand deficiencies in existing distribution.The assessments in Table I were primarily made withineach country and secondly countries were compared butmostly the ranking of countries for a parameter isappropriate. However, every grade has a certain ‖width‖and two countries with the same digit may differ. As anexample, district heating is assessed to be somewhatless competitive in Romania than in the Czech Republic.It follows a description of barriers in the individualcountries emphasising the largest barriers.Table I. – Height of DH barriers in analysed countries [1]BARRIER UK IRELAND FRANCE CZECH REPUBLIC ROMANIAOwnership and organisation 1 0 4 2 3Corruption 0 0 0 2 3National and local control 3 2 1 2Financing 4 3 2 3 3Fragmented value chain 4 3 1 2 1Entrance barrier for foreign companies 1 1 4 2 2DH competitiveness 2 1 3 4 4Customer relations 2 2 1 4Built environment 3 4 2 0 0Biomass 3 3 1 3 1Waste 1 1 3 4 2CHP 3 3 2 4 4DH distribution 4 4 1 4THE BRITISH ISLESIn the United Kingdom (UK), and even more in Ireland,district heating is not really an establishedphenomenon. Figure 2 shows that residences mostlyare heated with gas in the UK, often through a gasboiler for the individual household. Oil is the mostcommon fuel in Irish homes but gas is expanding.The largest problem is district heating distribution(Table I). It is expensive and complicated to build DHnetworks in already built areas and, at least in the UK,it is not straightforward to obtain a licence for puttingdistrict heating pipes into streets. The financingdifficulties in the British Isles are primarily due to afragmented value chain with many contract issues thatneed to be solved before a larger district heatingscheme can be deployed. British thinking is based oncompetition and individual choices. A collective largescale solution, such as district heating, may conflictwith principles and tradition. Another large barrier is thebuilt environment. Few people live in multi-familyhouses in the UK and even fewer in Ireland [3], andeven these buildings often lack central heating, butindividual heating of apartments is common. Biomass225is rated as a rather large barrier in Table I becausesupplies are limited in the British Isles and fuel supplysystems are less developed.UK Government and municipalities have hitherto notfacilitated district-heating development sufficiently andstrong incentives for deploying district heating systemsare lacking. Heating is generally not regarded as apublic concern, but as a concern for each individual.National and local control is therefore indicated as arather large barrier in Table I. In Ireland, the situationseems to be slightly better but in both countries certainregulations, designed with electricity and gas in mind,are disadvantageous for district heating. CHP suffersespecially from rules on how produced heat and powermay be supplied.Customer relations are complicated because districtheating is a rather unknown energy form and there is acertain resistance against collective solutions [3]. Thereis a lack of standardised terms of contract forconnection to and delivery of district heating. Potentialheat suppliers and customers feel insecure concerninghow many users that will connect to a DH grid, for howlong they will stay and if heat supply may be