Heating and cooling maps
Overview of the status and impact of the innovation
What
Heat mapping can be an extremely useful tool for understanding energy use across a city. The idea is to create a map that shows precisely where, and how much, energy is being used in a city, along with types of energy and end uses. The mapping can then be used for many layers of analysis.
Why
Heating and cooling maps can help paint a complete picture of demand and thus inform plans for energy use and infrastructure investments. It can help determine the optimal placement and sizing of heat pumps, for example, while considering the constraints imposed by both heating networks and the electricity distribution network. Such planning will reduce losses in both networks and optimise overall operational costs.
BOX 6.15 Heat mapping project in Europe
Hotmaps is a European project that has designed an open-source toolbox to support public authorities, energy agencies and urban planners as they plan heating and cooling at local, regional and national levels. It allows users to map cooling and heating demand, as well as supply, for 28 EU Member States, along with renewable energy generation and industrial waste heat potential. It ensures that planned strategies will be in line with EU policies. Hotmaps has been demonstrated and validated in seven European pilots – in Denmark, Romania, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Related kits
Power to heat and cooling innovations
Innovations (35)
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Technology and infrastructure
- 1 Low-temperature heat pumps
- 2 Hybrid heat pumps
- 3 High-temperature heat pumps
- 4 Waste heat-to-power technologies
- 5 High-temperature electricity-based applications for industry
- 6 Low-temperature thermal energy storage
- 7 Medium- and high-temperature thermal energy storage
- 8 Fourth-generation DHC systems
- 9 Fifth-generation DHC systems
- 10 Internet of Things for smart electrification
- 11 Artificial intelligence for forecasting heating and cooling demands
- 12 Blockchain for enabling transactions
- 13 Digitalisation as a flexibility enabler
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Market design and regulation
- 14 Dynamic tariffs
- 15 Flexible power purchase agreement
- 16 Flexible power purchase agreement
- 17 Standards and certification for improved predictability of heat pump operation
- 18 Energy efficiency programmes for buildings and industry
- 19 Building codes for power-to-heat solutions
- 20 Streamlining permitting procedures for thermal infrastructure
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System planning and operation
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Business models
- 28 Aggregators
- 29 Distributed energy resources for heating and cooling demands
- 30 Heating and cooling as a service
- 31 Waste heat recovery from data centres
- 32 Eco-industrial parks and waste heat recovery from industrial processes
- 33 Circular energy flows in cities – booster heat pumps
- 34 Community-owned district heating and cooling
- 35 Community-owned power-to-heat assets