CTR, HOFOR and VEKS outline carbon neutral heat plan

Three district heating companies have published a report detailing how they will use biomass and waste to make their heat networks carbon neutral by 2025.

CTR, HOFOR and VEKS have published the results of a third study into lowering Copenhagen’s heat networks’ carbon footprint. Varmeplan Hovedstaden 3 confirms that the city’s district heating system can be carbon neutral by 2025, primarily through the conversion to biomass, of large fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Three scenarios are envisaged, all of which suggest that biomass and waste will provide most of Copenhagen’s future heat. Some will come from other renewable technologies, but all three scenarios foresee an expansion of Copenhagen’s heat storage capacity, from 2,700MWh to 20,000MWh.

The three companies foresee the ‘possibility’ of biomass use falling after 2025, as geothermal and solar heating technologies’ economics improve. But the report adds that the subsides available for these technologies are currently too low. It backs reform of the taxes and subsidies regime over time, but predicts that it will be at least 2050 before these technologies can replace the use of biomass and waste.

Read more http://www.varmeplanhovedstaden.dk/ (in Danish)