DISTRICT HEATING IN GREATER COPENHAGEN – history and status 2023
Starting point Once upon a time – more than 100 years ago -, the city council of Frederiksberg put both the environment and a future-orien- tated heat supply on the agenda. Frederiksberg is an independ- ent municipality situated in the western part of Copenhagen City. Heat production based on household waste incineration then became the starting signal for the development of district heating in the municipality. In the 19th century, Frederiksberg developed from being a village to a town with the nature of a big city. In 1857 – Fred- eriksberg became an independent municipality ranking as a market town. The city developed rapidly - industrial enterpris- es were built, and the factories attracted a workforce. The city grew bigger and bigger – the industry grew, and the popula- tion increased. A railway station was built, a fire service was established, schools and a library were built, and the city was provided with gas, running water, sewers, and electricity.
However, the busy activity had a natural – though problematic – "by-product": waste. Concurrently with the increase in popu- lation and the building of the outer area of Frederiksberg, the price of land increased, and it became even more expensive for the municipality to buy land for dumping grounds. At the same time, people were fully aware of the risk of, e.g., cholera by having dumping grounds placed too centrally. By the end of the 19th century, it was a cagey affair to walk around in the streets of Frederiksberg. Many of the free space areas were bursting with piled-up garbage with consequent odor problems. The municipality struggled with mountains of waste from the rapidly growing population. The lack of dumping grounds meant that the waste from the 75,000 inhabitants accumulated, and the fear arose that epidem- ics would break out. The municipality, therefore, had to come up with new thoughts – to build a waste incineration plant and utilize the surplus for district heating - a so-called Waste-to-Energy (WtE) plant.
Figure 1
The transmission network in Greater Copenhagen
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