District heating and cooling research team focuses on flexible, low-carbon heating and cooling solutions that enable the transition to and operation of clean energy systems. This is an important part of the energy landscape, since heating and cooling is responsible of approximately 50 % of all end-use of energy.

We have specific expertise and experience on assessing the impact of different technologies, technological concepts, business models, regulation or policies regarding the decarbonization effort. Our ability to carry out quantitative support for decision-making is based on the world-class modelling expertise on energy systems and the technologies within. Examples of the models that we utilize:

• Energy system and city-specific optimization models implemented in Backbone energy system modelling framework
• Apros District for district heating network simulations
• KITEE (Key Investments in Transition towards Energy Efficient DH systems) modelling approach

The core topics of our research (see image) are:

• Integration of renewable and excess heat into the district heating systems
• Flexible interaction between the heating and cooling and the surrounding energy system (sector-coupling)
• Solutions and concepts advancing low-temperature distribution for district heating
• Assessing development pathways for existing systems and future-proof design for new systems

In a nutshell, we assess the solutions for developing the current energy systems towards a carbon-free future recognizing and quantifying the uncertainties involved.