Heat planning: Baden-wurttemberg takes the bull by the horns – Decarb City Pipes 2050

The largest share of energy consumption in European cities is used for heating and cooling. This means that if cities want to hold to their ambition of becoming climate neutral by 2050, they urgently need to start planning how to phase out fossil fuels in the heating and cooling sector now.

In 2019, all parties of the Dutch Climate Agreement decided that cities in the Netherlands should design heat plans by 2021 to phase-out natural gas. Now the Länder of Baden-Württemberg in Germany seems to have followed the same example. The German region recently required its 103 cities of more than 20 000 inhabitants to develop a vision for their CO2-neutral heat supply 2050, both for residential buildings and for the industry. This is a news that we can only salute. Heating and cooling planning is a competency that cities urgently need to develop in order to phase out fossil fuels, but all too often, they are unfit for this. They lack data, financial means and capacity to clearly identify, analyse and map resources and solutions to make energy demand more efficient on the one hand, and to meet the demand with efficient, cost effective and greener energy sources on the other hand.

Enhancing cities’ technical and financial capacities

A key aspect of the planning is access to data. Cities need to have access to heat consumption data to have a better understanding of which neighbourhoods are suitable for district heating, heat pumps or biomass for example. Baden-Württemberg’s new regulation is interesting in this respect, as it specifically requires utilities and chimney sweeps to share their data with cities. In addition, it clearly specifies that (...)

News published on Decarb City Pipes 2050
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