Low temperature district heating for future energy systems

A reduction of emissions in the energy sector is essential for meeting international goals for climate change mitigation. Here, district heating (DH) can contribute significantly to a more efficient use of energy resources as well as better integration of renewable energy into the heating sector (e.g. geothermal heat, solar heat, heat from biomass combustion or waste incineration), and surplus heat (e.g. industrial waste heat). The more efficient use of all energy resources and the use of renewable energy are measures which lead to a reduced utilization of fossil energy, and thereby a reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Within this context, it is mandatory to consider the entire energy chain to achieve a good overall system performance. In this perspective low temperature district heating offers suitable technology solutions. The paper presents and discusses the final output of the international co-operative work in the framework of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the District Heating and Cooling including Combined Heat and Power (DHC|CHP) Annex TS1. The material collected and summarized in the recently published guidebook [1] show that low temperature district heating is a key enabling technology to increase the integration of renewable and waste energy for heating and cooling. Low temperature district heating is one of the most cost efficient technology solutions to achieve 100 % renewable and GHG emission-free energy systems on a community level.