Today the Annex 47 regarding heat pumps in district heating systems is an important annex under the IEA Heat Pumping Technologies program because more and more countries have realized that district heating is a way to phase out fossil fuel.
Heat pumps in district heating grids are playing a key role in the energy grid and supply for the future. With implementation of district heating is it possible to cover up to 50 % of the heating demand in Europe, and heat pumps can deliver around 25 % of the energy to the district heating grid. The Heat Road Map Europe 4 scenarios shows that the CO2 emissions can be reduced with more than 70 %. High potential for heat pumps
Within the project country reports describing the market and energy reduction potential that have been made for Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden and Austria, they are all showing that there is a high potential for heat pumps in existing district heating systems, in large central plants, large decentralised plants as well as in small decentralised plants. But district heating is competing with biomass in the scenarios for the future. Different tools have been made since the project started to estimate their potential. Heatroadmap.eu is one of the most known tools.
There are now 38 different cases describing the implementation of heat pumps in district heating systems and we will probably end up with around 40 cases in Task 2 of Annex 47. The different cases will all be assembled in an inspiration catalogue, where planners of new projects can gather information and get inspiration regarding different solutions with different heat sources for different district heating grids.Lack of experience
Our studies have shown that one of the barriers to the integration of large-scale heat pumps in district energy systems is that operators lack experience regarding the integration and operation of heat pumps in existing district heating systems compared to well-known biomass- or gas-based generation units.
More information and reports from the Annex can be found at: https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/annex47/ and the publications are available on https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/annex47/publications/By Svend Vinther Pedersen, Senior specialist at the Danish Technological Institute
