Heat supply tomorrow
The avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions is a global task that calls for local action. Climate protection means improving energy efficiency on all levels - in generation, the grid and at the consumer end - and the provision of energy still required on a regenerative basis when possible. The heat market is the market which local players - Stadtwerke and municipalities - can shape to a large extent with a view to avoiding carbon emissions.
Reducing carbon emissions by 80% to 95% not only results in considerable energy efficiency measures but also in an almost complete departure from fossil energy systems by 2050. The road towards a carbon-free world is hence a development from central to decentralised generation which can only be achieved if the grids can also be "retrofitted" accordingly. In light of the fact that investment measures in grids have a life expectancy of 20-40 years, this apparently very long period of time is already relevant today for entrepreneurial decisions by grid operators.
Conventional electricity and heat generation can be successfully developed to carbon-free generation through persistent investment in the ongoing expansion of decentralised and regenerative generation. In the long term, this will happen by replacing natural gas with regenerative energy sources; in the short term, it will be supported by a form of generation that only uses fossil energy produced according to best-practice standards - especially by replacing hard coal with natural-gas cogeneration plants.
But it's not just about the development of heat demand, but about opening up the potential for citizens and business to cover their own heat demand and to generate regenerative electricity. It's about innovative supply concepts that are both economically efficient and less damaging to the environment. Restructuring the local grid infrastructure - district heating, electricity and gas - is a vital precondition in this context. Every city and every municipality must face up to this task. Municipal Stadtwerke are the drivers, system optimisers and implementers of the necessary changes.
