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, Estoniainterrupted. The competitiveness of district heatingcompared to gas concerning availability and price isconsidered as a medium severe barrier in the BritishIsles (Table I).Legend: Grade 4: Large barrier, Grade 3: , Grade 2: , Grade 1: Small barrier, Grade 0: Assessed not to be a barrier,No grade: No assessment.100%90%80%70%60%50%40%30%20%10%0%UK Ireland France France Czech Czech Republic Republic Romania RomaniaDistrict District heating heating Gas Gas Biomass Biomass Peat Peat Electricity Electricity Oil Oil Coal CoalFig. 2. Heating of residences [1], [4]–[6]FRANCETable I shows that one of the largest barriers in Franceconcerns the organisation of district-heating operations.Most DH systems are managed by private Frenchcompanies according to long-term concessions [7]. Thecompanies have successfully applied this DHmanagement model in several other countries. By sucharrangements, it is important that operators haveincentives to make investments even if these havepayback times longer than the concession period [8]. Itis unclear if the French DH management model isdisadvantageous for district heating development but itshould anyway be a large barrier for foreign companieswanting to enter the French market. In general,domestic solutions are preferred. There is no strongactor who provides unbiased support for districtheating. The dominating DH operators also sellelectricity and gas, which both cover a large fraction ofthe heat demand (Fig. 2) and offer district heatingsevere competition. Only ten percent of the apartmentsand four percent of all residences have district heatingtoday, and DH expansion is slow [6].Fig. 3 shows that one-half of the district heating inFrance is produced with natural gas, mostly in CHPplants. The main part of the renewable energy used fordistrict heating production is waste, which is used to aslowly growing extent [7]. But French wasteincineration plants are mostly built far away from towns,which makes it difficult to utilise the heat [6].CoalRenewablesMiscellaneousOilNaturalgas CHPNaturalgas heatFig. 3. District heating production in France [9]Financing is considered to be a smaller problem inFrance. The market domination by a few actors maypresent an indirect financial barrier. Quite a few peoplelive in apartments but most multi-family houses lackcentral heating. The large French nuclear powerproduction is one reason for worse CHP conditions,which is assessed as a medium-grade barrier (Table I).THE CZECH REPUBLICFig. 2 shows that district heating covers a substantialpart of residential heating in the Czech Republic, butelectricity is used to the same extent and gas is themost common heat source. District heating covers onehalfof the apartments and 60% of urban heating [7].A large barrier in the Czech Republic is, according toTable I, the competitiveness of district heating.226