Most of modern society’s energy usage is spent on heating in some form, whether it is to heat water, raise the temperature in a room, or for use in industrial processes. This makes it an excellent target for improvements in efficiency and resilience, as well as in the effort to decarbonize the world’s energy production. Here district heating and similar solutions are likely to play a major role in the near future.

Over the past decades, a number of nations have either already built out extensive district heating grids, or are in the process of doing so. The main advantage of these heating grids is that they not only allow for more efficient, centralized generating of heat, but also allow for e.g. industrial waste heat to be used productively rather than wasted, even if most of the heat will come from either dedicated or cogeneration thermal plants.

Recently, district heating has received a big push in e.g. China in the form of nuclear cogeneration, while the potential of using thermal storage to buffer heat for later use along with the concept of tying data centers into heating grids are also being explored. Although district heating is hardly new, it may help to ease humanity into a low-carbon future, without losing a bit of comfort.

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