29 percent – is lost in thermal electricity
generation due to low conversion efficiencies. (That number jumps to 57
percent if end-use conversion losses
are included.)
In the future, European energy systems
must reduce these huge heat losses to
increase energy efficiency, reduce CO2
emissions and increase the security of
supply. The heat sector, in general, and
the district heating sector, in particular,
could help meet these objectives by
recovering and recycling existing heat
losses to satisfy local heat demands on
the European market.
Examining the European heat market,
Ecoheatcool illustrated that district heating had a market share of 6 percent as a
final end use of net heat and electricity.
District heating is mainly used in Europe
for space heating and domestic hot water
preparation in the residential, service and
industrial sectors. Some district heating
is also used in the industrial sector for
low-temperature process heat demands.
In 2003, district heating was distributed
in Europe via more than 5,000 networks
containing 150,000 km (93,000 miles) of
transmission and distribution pipes.
District heating has reached high,
almost saturated, market shares in eight
countries: Iceland, Denmark, Finland,
Sweden, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lith-
Ecoheatcool Findings
The Ecoheatcool initiative has published the following six reports summarizing
the project’s analyses:
• The European Heat Market
• The European Cold Market
• Guidelines for assessing the efficiency of district heating and district cooling systems
• Possibilities with more district heating in Europe
• Possibilities with more district cooling in Europe
• Recommendations
These complimentary reports can be downloaded from the project Web site, www.
ecoheatcool.org.
uania; some expansion is still possible in
these nations, however. Conditions are
favorable for district heating in Norway,
Austria, Italy and Turkey, where annual
growth rates are high ( 6 percent to 10
percent). Three important, large countries in the study are showing no significant district heating growth: Germany,
France and the United Kingdom.
Key figures from 2003 show 78
percent of the total district heating
generated in Europe was from recycled
and renewable heat. Specifically
68 percent came from combined heat
and power plants;
14 percent from renewables, which was
higher than the EU target of 12 percent
for 2010;
7 percent from biomass, from several
hundred systems using biomass in
their energy supply (in Sweden 42
percent of district heating is produced
using biomass); and
1 percent from geothermal, from about
100 systems using geothermal heat
completely or partially, mostly in
Iceland and France.
The total net heat demand for the
industrial, residential and service sectors
in 2003 was estimated to be about 20. 8
EJ for Ecoheatcool’s target area. The
additional potential for district heating
sales was estimated to be nearly 7 EJ/
year – more than three times higher than
current sales.
With regard to the European ‘cold’
market, Ecoheatcool estimated the total
cooling demands to be 0.5 EJ in 2000
for the EU- 15 area. (The EU- 15 are those
countries in the EU before its May 1, 2004,
Total Energy Balance for 32 Countries in Ecoheatcool’s Target Area, 2003. (Total primary energy supply 81EJ.)
EJ heat
90
80
70
60
50
40
Source: Ecoheatcool.
30
20
10
0
Losses in the energy transformation sector
Losses in end use
Combustible renewable’s and waste
Solar / Wind / Other
Geothermal
Hydro
Nuclear
Natural gas
Petroleum products
Coal and coal products
Transportation
Electricity
Heat
Total primary Total final
energy supply consumption
The various steps in the energy supply are
divided into three separate bars: total primary
energy supply, total final consumption and estimated final end use. The total primary supply
of 81 EJ contains the total calorific value of all
fuels and other energy supplied to satisfy the
total energy demand. (The corresponding primary energy supply for United States was 96 EJ
during 2003.)
The second bar – total final consumption –
Total end use
(estimated)
contains all energy commodities used by all community sectors. Note that all hydro and nuclear
resources and most of the coal are used to generate electricity, while most of the petroleum products, natural gas and combustible renewables are
transferred directly to the final energy consumers.
Approximately 11 EJ electricity and 2 EJ heat
(mainly district heating) were delivered, accounting for 18 percent and 3. 4 percent of the total
final energy consumption of 57 EJ.
The difference between the first two bars
reflects what occurs in the energy transformation, including power generation, oil refining,
central heat generation for district heating systems, and distribution losses in electricity and
heat distribution systems. The total heat losses
from the energy transformation were huge: 24
EJ, which is 29 percent of all primary energy
supply. Most was lost in electricity generation.
The third bar contains the estimated final
use of heat: electricity for power and lighting,
and finally power for overcoming friction,
speed change, altitudes and air resistance in
transportation. Heat amounted to 20 EJ, while
electricity use was 10 EJ, since some electricity
was used for transportation purposes. Also in
this third step, the heat losses were huge from
high-temperature industrial processes, heat
generation in local boilers and conversion losses
from vehicle engines.
The major conclusion from this simple energy
balance analysis is that the huge total heat losses
equate to more than half of the total energy supply. Parts of these losses could be retrieved and
distributed by district heating systems.
