Thoughts on the International symposium on district heating and cooling - Hamburg 2018

The past two days I spent in Hamburg immersed in the latest research of the district heating and cooling sector. With the presentation of 67 academic papers and 245 attendees there was a lot of knowledge on site and worthwhile connections to be made. Congratulations to Prof. Ingo Weidlich and his team for delivering a fantastic symposium. Below are my observations from these intense and very interesting two days: 

• Policy: Paul Voss, Managing Director at Euroheat & Power, had the task of delivering a keynote after 90 minutes of other keynotes. Fortunately his personal anecdote of his favorite taxi driver helped get the attention of the crowd (or was it because the windows that were opened breathed some fresh air into the room?). His message was twofold: On the one hand the message was that the district heating sector is part of a future sustainable energy system and shall play a significant and increasing role in it (as an alternative to an all electric grid solution). On the the other hand, the sector as a whole should grasp the opportunity to modernize and be more in line with the fundamentals of any energy sector. Most important being: digitizing asset infrastructure and maintenance and delivering a system that gives consumers choice.
• Electricity and heat sector coupling: The keynote by Prof. Hendrik Lund of Aalborg University and papers presented by link 1 and link 2 all went into detail of the way the electricity and heat sector can be coupled. The trigger being the large quantities of electricity being produced at moments when there is no direct use. For this storage is needed and batteries are currently getting the most attention. However, the scale at which storage will be needed is immense. Another route is to use a heat pump to produce heat when there is excess electricity and store it in a heat buffer. Eg, use of excess solar electricity during the day for hot water demand in the evening or of use excess wind during night time for heat demand during the morning peak. 
•  Optimization/Forecasting: This is the area I was most interested in as it is also the area that we as withthegrid are heavily involved in and working with our clients o. Results were presented from around the world relating to more accurate prediction of demand through machine learning, production optimization, grid optimization and peak shaving at the end customer end. This development has the potential to truly modernize the sector, reduce emissions and lower final costs to consumers. It will be very interesting to see where the research stands at the next event in two years.
•  Automation: Another frequently presented topic. Level of automation within a district heating grid differs per grid. Older grids tend to have limited automation and are not yet capable of closely monitoring multiple parameters within the grid (only at production level and substation). The importance of this will increase as there will be more and different production units feeding into the same grid thereby increasing the need of coordination of temperatures being fed into the grid. Third party access and low temperature district heating grids will only be possible with much higher levels of automation. And in return, third party access and low temperature grids are essential elements for the future of district heating grids.
•  Selling of energy grids (re-municipalisation): A topic that was more relevant from the German market where over the last years multiple grids have been remunicipalised. Current discussion is ongoing for the Hamburg district heating grid as well pending a vote later this year. It was noted by one of the panel members that right now there are just as many municipally owned grid operators (Stadtwerke) in Germany as there were 20 years ago. From my perspective, it is understandable that this discussion is taking place given the challenges and perception district heating faces. However, I fear that we are avoiding the underlying more important debate namely how do we realize the energy transition and do we switch to renewable sourced energy. Remunicipalisation will certainly take away some hurdles but we must not forget the arguments used for liberalization 20-30 years ago. Since then, the energy system has become much more complex and unpredictable. Ownership structure will not solve those challenges on the spot. What this debate does do is bring to the attention to a wider audience the importance of the energy system and that what was once self evident may not be so in the future.
• Bridging the gap: It was furthermore interesting to note when talking to Scandinavian, German or other European attendees each and every one of them mentioned that district heating is really moving in the Netherlands. From my own experience I tended to agree but when you are closer to the action you also seem to see a greater difference between the many ambitions and what actually is being done. But then again it was agreed by all that this gap is witnessed all across Europe.

From withthegrid we are hoping to contribute by bridging the gap of ambition and reality through our maintenance solutions for energy grids (including sensors for predictive maintenance) and our optimization software for district heating grids. Please reach out if you want to know how we can assist you.