Economic and ecological investigation of heat grid scenarios in a German suburban area

This study explores the planning of a decarbonized local heating network for a typical suburban area without access to industrial waste heat, examining various scenarios based primarily on local energy potentials. All investigated scenarios are subject to the current federal funding criteria for efficient heating networks in Germany and reduces CO2 emissions by at least 52% compared to the status quo. Depending on the boundary conditions, the dominant technologies in terms of the quantities of heat generated air source heat pump and biomass. Fossil based generation technologies only produce a small proportion of the heat and therefore only operate in the peak load range. By dispensing natural gas fueled condensing boilers with Power-to-heat units, further CO2 emissions can be avoided in the future. As the emissions assessment is based on the current German electricity mix, the scenarios in which large proportions of the heat are generated by biomass in particular lead to a sharp drop in CO2 emissions. The costs of the heat grid scenarios are also compared to climate neutral decentralized supply solutions and a scenario with no changes (status quo) in the heat supply. In this study the grid scenarios have an increased economic efficiency assuming that all households will connect to a heating network.