is beneficial for the public interest can be interpreted in the context of ensuring energy security and mitigating climate change. Challenge Safety and security of IT systems With increasing threats from cyberwarfare, cyberterrorism, and cybercriminal activities, software development teams need to be vigilant and able to react quickly to emerging threats, particularly in critical infrastructures like DHC systems. There is no doubt that security is an integral part of the development lifecycle of digital solutions. Security measures need to be considered and implemented at every stage, including architecture, coding, testing, deployment, and during the operational phase. During the operational phase, it is vital that the solution provider’s security operation team monitor, detect, investigate, and respond to security incidents and threats in real time. The security operation teams play a crucial role in ensuring the overall security posture of digital solutions, which is vital in today’s fast-evolving cybersecurity landscape. One important aspect of ensuring the high safety and security of IT systems involves making resources available for maintaining them. In that respect, standardized and cloud-based solutions developed and supported by strong companies have greater access to resources to maintain their systems’ security and integrity.
applicable, these features should be orchestrated through secure cloud platforms and effectively communicated to local controllers. This ensures a cohesive and integrated system under normal conditions as well as in case of unexpected disruptions. GDPR compliance GDPR aims to ensure the protection of natural persons from the exploitation of their personally identifiable data. Under GDPR, valid use of personally identifiable data is specified for a) fulfilling legal contracts, b) fulfilling legal obligations, or c) performing a catalog case. While a) and b) are self- explanatory, c) covers specified and regulated data usage cases. The dataset catalog offers a comprehensive description and intelligent tagging of the data allowed to be collected, as well as precise definitions for the lawful use of the information. Data collection and processing are also allowed for non-regulated data usage once revocable consent from the owner is granted. Challenge In [3], it was argued that the public advantage from data reading and processing in DHC systems, which can be used to achieve energy efficiency and climate benefits, is strong enough to fall under the umbrella of lawful data processing, as described in Paragraph 1 of Article 6 of the GDPR. The EU has developed a data regulation called the Data Act to ensure a fair relationship between users and data holders. The Data Act came into force on January 11, 2024, and becomes applicable on September 12, 2025. As the Data Act covers both personal and non-personal data, it is a complementary regulation to the GDPR. The Data Act aims to facilitate data sharing and ensure a sustainable environment for the future development of data-driven solutions by imposing an obligation on data holders to make data available to users and third parties of the user’s choice. The Data Act does not differentiate between business and consumer users regarding the right to share data. Further, the Data Act adapts rules of contract law and prevents the exploitation of contractual imbalances that hinder fair access to and use of data. The Data Act further requires manufacturers of connected products and related services to ensure that data transmitted out of the product and collected is always easily and securely accessible to a user, free of charge, and in a comprehensive, structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format. This new regulation will stimulate the future growth of digitalization solutions and has the potential to unlock new and, so far, practically unattainable benefits. The Data Act data sharing requirements on data holders when the use of data
Challenge
Lack of reference datasets and benchmarks
Given the considerable system-to-system variations outlined earlier, creating a broadly representative dataset for the sec- tor is challenging. However, due to the high costs of chang- ing IT systems, utilities should consider reference datasets and benchmarks as crucial parameters when selecting future digitalization systems. Creating a suitable reference dataset is being considered in the upcoming 3-year IEA Annex TS9 pro- ject: “Digitalization of District Heating and Cooling: Improving Efficiency and Performance Through Data Integration.” It’s a tough game, but DH can do it. As an infrastructure, DHC is, from a physical point of view, a future-proof solution. The 7 challenges have been addressed above, yet five prerequisites were also added – 1) robust, yet flexible; 2) reliable and secure, yet open and supportive to other sectors; 3) green, yet sustainable; 4) local, yet acting global and 5) widespread, yet affordable.
The infrastructure is robust and reliable; the only requirement for thermal sources is their temperature level. The challenge is
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