Strategic energy supply concepts for heat planning test area clusters
Client: Landeshauptstadt München, Referat für Klima- und Umweltschutz
Duration: March 2025 – March 2026
Background
The transformation of heat supply presents a central challenge, particularly in urban areas, on the path to climate neutrality by 2045. While Munich, with its extensive district heating network, has generally good conditions for sustainable heat supply, district heating is not the optimal solution in all parts of the city. The heat plan for Munich, adopted on May 15, 2024, provides strategic guidance for an ecologically and economically sustainable heat supply in most areas. Both centralized and decentralized renewable heat supply solutions have been identified. However, in certain so-called “assessment areas,” which account for about 4% of the city’s building blocks, there is an increased need for more detailed concepts due to heterogeneous building structures and varying energy source conditions.
Goals and Results
Within the scope of this project, robust strategies for a climate-neutral heating supply were developed and evaluated for three selected assessment-area clusters within Munich’s municipal heat planning, and their transferability to other assessment areas was examined. The objective was, in particular, to identify solutions for those areas in which the existing heat plan has so far not defined a clear supply option for at least 80% of the buildings.
The analyses conducted show that no universally applicable supply solution exists. Rather, the most technically, economically, and ecologically viable options are consistently highly dependent on the respective district structures, building characteristics, and available local heat sources.
Across all investigated areas, decentralized heat pump solutions represent the primary baseline option. They are characterized by comparatively high cost efficiency, short-term feasibility, and broad applicability; however, they are particularly limited in densely built-up urban districts due to space availability, noise protection requirements, and heritage conservation constraints.
District heating solutions based on large-scale heat pumps show significant CO₂ reduction potential but are only economically viable under specific conditions and involve higher implementation requirements. A comprehensive rollout of centralized district heating networks is therefore not realistic in the short to medium term.
