1. Topic

2. Introduction

District heating is used to warm up buildings and water. The heat can be provided from variety of sources, including geothermal heat, co-generation plants, waste heat from industry, biogas and purpose-built heating plants. The produced heat is distributed via pipelines into the buildings.

3. Discussion

The usage of district heating requires investment. The heat is produced in a central plant where either heat only is produced or also electricity is produced simultaneously. The plant can, for example, be a waste incinerator plant. But as district heat, waste heat from industry can also be used. The heat distribution network is normally constructed underground. In every building connected to the system a central heating device is needed in order to make the heat suitable for warming the building or water.

The usage of district heating has reduced emissions (especially sulphur dioxide emissions) inside the residential areas because after building the district heat network there is no need for private heating systems. The emissions are reduced when the warmth is produced in centralised plants because the emission reduction technology is advanced in large plants but tends to be more polluting on a smaller scale.

The usage of district heating is very user-friendly. The real estate management is easy because the district heating provider normally takes care of the equipment related to the district heating system. There is no longer a need for storing the fuel needed for other heating systems.

We must emphasize the fact that thanks to this technology the indoor exposure is dramatically reduced since no gas combustion occurs often in houses served by a DH system.

4. Recommendation / Conclusion

Air quality depends mostly on the emissions produced by traffic and industry. The traffic emissions seem to be increasing due to an increase in car usage. Some good results for air quality can be achieved by reducing the emissions deriving from residential locations and buildings in general. A possible way of reducing the amount of residential emissions is to transfer from private heating system into the central heating system.

5. Examples / Further Reading

District Heating in Gothenburg

District heating in Utrecht

Further Examples:

6. Additional Documents / Web Links

Last Updated

25th January 2005