Everything sounds like progress on Monday in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and it should. Green Minister Robert Habeck sees a “strong signal” there, “determination” and a “broad alliance” – and all of this to do with the heat transition. All things, then, that the traffic light coalition has been struggling for weeks about when it comes to German heating systems. However, on Monday, Habeck and Minister of Construction Klara Geywitz (SPD) were not the guests of the coalition, but representatives of municipalities, public utilities, consumer protection: to the “district heating summit”. Meanwhile, the traffic light was arguing.
The expansion of district heating is one of the crucial pieces of the puzzle for the heat transition of the traffic light coalition. In cities in particular, the direct supply of heat is often the simplest way of making buildings independent of fossil fuels. It is no longer gas or oil boilers that provide the heat in radiators and water pipes, but more or less distant thermal power stations. By 2030, at least half of these, in turn, must run on renewable energy – be it from the combustion of biomass, with large heat pumps or geothermal energy. “In the medium term, at least 100,000 new buildings are to be connected to the heating network every year,” says the joint statement by the District Heating Alliance.
District heating thus plays an important role in the specifications that Germany’s boiler room should face in the future. After all, in the foreseeable future, every new heating system should run with 65 percent renewable energy – or with district heating. In communities with more than 10,000 inhabitants, a “heating plan” is to be disclosed in the future, where exactly the heating networks are to be laid, and the corresponding law could pass the cabinet this month. So far there are no signs of major resistance.
It must be clear by Tuesday morning whether the heating law will be on the agenda
But while the Friends of District Heating are forging a new alliance in the Ministry of Economic Affairs, a few hundred meters away the coalition factions are talking heatedly – about the trickier part of the heating transition: What exactly are millions of homeowners to expect? At what point do they have to throw out old heaters at the latest, and what support do they receive in doing so? It must be clear by Tuesday morning whether the “Building Energy Act” will be on the Bundestag’s agenda. If the government factions don’t succeed in this, the heating amendment will be a thing of the past before the summer break. Then the coalition would have a serious problem with one of its core concerns, climate protection – and its ability to act would also be in question. No results were available at the time this issue went to press.
The heat transition has long been underway, at least for new buildings. The Federal Statistical Office presented new figures on Monday, they document the triumph of the electric heat pump. Accordingly, three quarters of the houses that were built last year are heated entirely or partially with renewable energies. In 57 percent of new buildings, this is done by a heat pump. Natural gas, which was still the most important heating energy in every second new building in 2015, will still account for a good quarter in 2022. The trend is even clearer when it comes to building permits, i.e. houses that are yet to be built: in three quarters, the main heat source is renewable. In 71 percent of cases, the heat pump will heat up at some point. “The numbers indicate an absolutely positive trend,” says SPD housing politician Bernhard Daldrup. The new building in the country is “consistently on the way to climate neutrality”.
However, the alternatives beyond district heating and heat pumps remain controversial. Last week, an alliance of environmental organizations warned against increasingly relying on wood and wood pellets. This increases the already massive pressure on the forests and is ultimately not climate-friendly, because for every felled tree one has to grow back. Above all, the FDP had pushed for allowing fuels such as wood to be open to technology.
On Monday, the environmental associations WWF and Deutsche Umwelthilfe will follow up – with calculations by the Prognos Institute on heating costs for hydrogen and biogas. Both variants would therefore be more expensive in the long term than installing a heat pump, both in a single-family home and in an apartment building. According to the calculation, the Süddeutsche Zeitung is available, the operation of a hydrogen-based heating system will cost more than twice as much as that of a heat pump in 2035. “Pretending that hydrogen heating is a good option is consumer deception,” says WWF expert Heike Vesper. This type of heating is “like gold as a road surface: resource-intensive, inefficient and expensive”.