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heat pumps and storages depends very much on the future development in the electricity market. National development strategies should ensure flexible, but robust, framework conditions for investors and operators to be successful - i.e. to ensure that the overall development goals are achieved. Future temperature requirements in the district heating systems are very important for integration of new renewable sources and online monitoring of consumer behaviour and temperatures will be a main prerequisite for developing of the future smart cities systems. The DH system in Denmark, through its inherent flexibility, has been able to support different Danish energy policy ambitions over time, including targets on energy efficiency and renewable energy. To ensure efficient utilisation throughout the development process, an efficient interaction between the electricity and heat market are of upmost importance. Planning and pooled operation of several energy production plants in integrated urban CHP/DH systems based on RES (biomass/ geothermal/solar) is important to optimise the use of different types of renewable sources in different heat and electricity markets. Flexibility and links between the electricity systems and the heat market are required to ensure that energy is not wasted. The competition amongst the energy companies in the different markets has resulted in less transparency between companies. Actors have become more secretive and do not publish performance indicators as they used to, thus hiding operation information from their competitors. Private ownership of DH companies in some cases has set a new barrier for co-operation with the municipality. Information exchange has been restricted, co-planning has been put aside and energy efficiency is not promoted. What in the end will jeopardize the agreed overall goals. In some cases district heating companies protect and extend heat sales as their core business and this sometimes creates barriers to efficiency improvements and integration of new technologies. The challenge "Who is to pay the bill (if any) for sustainability and long term objectives?" is difficult to solve. These factors create new barriers to optimal development and benchmarking to the benefit of efficiency and sustainability. Exchange of good experiences has become more difficult and a systematic approach to present cases and replicable key actions, where different stakeholders can get inspiration for their next move, therefor it is very important to ensure development towards the efficiency goals.
The regulatory process should be transparent and predictable and Regulators should be independent from ownership and management. Regulation should provide incentives for efficiency improvements. Tariffs should allow investors to cover full costs, however investment decisions in parallel should consider the interests of consumers (least-cost and supply security).Social protection programs should target low-income households. Heat consumption-based meters, which improve access to information for consumers and suppliers about heat consumption and losses are important to transparency and understanding of behavior consequences. When consumers and heat suppliers are aware of actual consumption levels rather than estimates based on norms they have incentives to take action to reduce their losses and costs. The future DH can be highly flexible in terms of switching between production plants and fuels, and the CHP technology is well proven, and has over time turned out to be very flexible – it has adapted to different fuels and technologies following changing political priorities over the decades. In the future, large amounts of fluctuating energy (especially wind) will require a dynamic new energy system with increased interaction between energy production and consumption and between electricity and heat. New technologies, such as electric heat pumps, electric heaters, geothermal heat and heat storage will be developed with a view to becoming instrumental components of the district heating supply in the long term. Heat pumps and CHP plant provides the connection between heat and power in the energy system. Just like heat produced in a CHP plant can reduce the flexibility in the electricity grid, heat production from large CHP connected to DH systems also can increase flexibility. With increasingly fluctuating electricity prices, the option to choose between heat produced from inexpensive electricity or to produce electricity sold to a higher price will drive variable heat prices down.
The integrated planning process is important for the future development process.
The feasibility of investing in a new plant (CHP, heat pumps, geothermal plants, solar plants and larger heat storages plant) should be analysed both for the specific national and for local market conditions. The environmental benefits of the production facility are to be incorporated. The feasibility of new CHP plants,
For further information please contact:
COWI Att.: Else Bernsen Parallelvej 2 2800 Kongens Lyngby
Denmark Direct: +45 56 40 28 34 ebe@cowi.dk www.cowi.com
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