Scenarios for district heating in the capital area

In 2012, Copenhagen Municipality published the climate plan KBH 2025, which shows the direction for reductions of carbon emissions in Copenhagen, with a goal of having the city reach carbon neutrality by 2025. To follow up, Copenhagen Municipality now works on a new climate plan towards 2035. Ea has supported this work with analyses of scenarios for the development of the district heating system in the capital area in the coming 10-25 years.

The project builds on results from two earlier projects that Ea was also involved in. The first one was FFH50 from 2020-21 and the second one was a project focusing on the district heating system in 2030, which was carried out in 2021-22. In this new project, a broader spectrum of scenarios is analysed in order to cover the consequences of the considerable changes in the energy sector in both Denmark and Europe in recent years.

In the analysis focus was on opportunities and prerequisites for 1) a marked reduction in biomass use for electricity and district heating in the capital area, 2) to assess whether CCS can contribute to the climate targets in Copenhagen Municipality, 3) to assess the role of waste incineration for district heating and as a climate tool, and 4) to outline area and electricity capacity needs for establishing electricity boilers and heat pumps. Three scenarios were set up: A basis scenario, a heat pump scenario, and a scenario with carbon capture and storage.

The project ran from March to November 2023.