This report has been established within the Flexiheat project. Flexiheat has focused on increasing flexibility in district heating systems. The intelligent district heating network is a dynamic network: an open network where different waste heat and renewable energy sources are connected, that has multiple producers and groups of consumers and facilitates the connection between different energy infrastructures (gas, heat and electricity). Eventually this will lead to an optimal deployment of the available heat sources and an increased cost-efficiency of district heating. Flexiheat aims to develop new concepts for these intelligent, flexible district heating networks. One of the strategies is to allow third party access to the network. A smart control system is developed to manage the heat flows across the network. This system makes use of dynamic pricing. In this exploration the concept of third party access in relation to the Flexiheat project will be discussed. The development of new business and price models based on the Flexiheat approach has led to an analysis of possible alternative price models for consumers.
Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Community energy organizations often take the form of cooperatives and strive for a high level of participation at the neighborhood level. Recently, community energy initiatives took on the challenge to develop neighborhood heating projects, which are citizen-led and sustainable. District heating (DH) projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, and large installations for heat production. Furthermore, specialized technical knowledge is needed for the design of DH-systems.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases where local energy cooperatives developed such citizen-led neighborhood heating projects. Our primary research question is what constitutes a citizen-led or citizen-supported DH-project? We focus on four themes: first, the internal organization of the CH-project; second its outreach to local citizens; third, the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; fourth, the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We developed a theoretical framework that consists of three main networks: the internal network, constituted by the local energy initiative itself and its surrounding neighborhood; the external network, which is comprised of local and regional governments as well as private companies; and the material network, referring to technological and physical aspects.In the discussion, we situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of activities to involve the neighborhood are key success factors. Nevertheless, the development of a community DH-project is a time-consuming process that takes a high toll on the participants. We observed that the remunicipalization trend is emerging in the Netherlands. Regarding technology choices, we found that the DH-initiatives became quite knowledgeable on technical issues and stimulated the application of new technologies such as small-scale aquathermal energy. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
Community energy can be conceptualized as a social movement, which aims to develop a sustainable, democratic, and localist energy system. Increasingly, community energy initiatives aim to develop citizen-led heating projects. District heating projects are characterized by costly investments, a substantial overhaul of local infrastructure, large installations for heat production, and require specialized technical knowledge. Based on Social Movement Theory, we developed a theoretical framework consisting of three main networks: internal, external, and material.In the Netherlands, we studied four cases of citizen-led heating projects. Our primary research question is what a citizen-led DH-project constitutes. We focus on four themes: the internal organization of the CH-project; its outreach to local citizens; the role of technical knowledge and technology choices; the changing role of municipalities in the local energy transition.We situate our findings against a broader European background. We conclude that a democratic structure, transparency of decision making, and a high level of neighborhood participation are key success factors. However, in some cases the choice for a low-cost solution led to concessions to the sustainability of the proposed solutions.
