Overview
- This week Prognos published a nationwide Fernwärmeatlas that estimates district heating could technically serve about 48% of buildings, rising from roughly 6.4 million connected apartments today to about 20 million.
- The atlas rates 19% of districts as very good for expansion and 49% as good to average, with the potential clustered in cities and in East and North Germany where pipes already exist.
- Prognos finds 55% of the connectable apartments lie in areas with existing networks, and it names seven smaller “hidden champion” cities — Frankenthal, Konstanz, Memmingen, Neustadt an der Weinstraße, Pirmasens, Straubing and Worms — as especially promising for new builds.
- A major caveat is that many current networks still run on fossil fuels, which limits climate gains even though the study says ten states could supply a majority of district heat from local renewables and Hamburg and Bremen could reach 100%.
- Cost and market concerns are acute because district heating often costs consumers more than heat pumps or gas and customers face limited provider choice, making the atlas a key input for end-June municipal heat plans and for homeowners weighing retrofit options.