District Heating Germany

In Germany, district heating connections are rarely paid upfront, a common pricing model is that the customer pays a yearly fee over the lifetime of the heat exchange station based on the effect installed and “pays off” the purchase and installation price of the heat exchanger. In those cases, the pricing model for district heat consists of the following 3 price types:

• Base price: fixed yearly fee that depends on the installed effect (in kW) of the heat exchanger
• Work price: based on the actual heat (in kWh) consumed
• Service fee or Measuring price: fixed yearly fee that may also differ depending on the installed effect

In order to differentiate between investment and operating costs, we calculate the investment, i.e. purchase and installation cost based on the base price with an assumed lifetime of the heat exchanger. Please note that the investment cost only contains the purchase cost and installation of the actual substation / heat exchanger in the buidling. Any costs associated with the installation of pipes to the district heat grid are not included as they are very different from installation to installation and above all, they only occur once, and will not appear again when the substation / heat exchanger has reached its end of life and is replaced by a new substation / heat exchanger.

A common approach of comparing the cost of district heat to other heating types is by calculating a mixed price where the fixed and work depended yearly costs are summed up and divided by the amount of heat consumed. AFGW has compiled a document containing district heating prices per Bundesland and a German average. The calculation is based on the mixed price, i.e. the total yearly costs divided by the total yearly consumption of heat in MWh. The complete document is available under https://www.fernwaerme-info.com/fileadmin/Redakteure/fernwaerme-info/F%C3%B6rderung_und_Kosten/Kosten_und_Preise/Preis%C3%BCbersicht_Webexemplar.pdf.

Below we have calculated the base price, work price and service fees for a typical small scale residential building and larger scale non-residential (commercial or municipal) building based on a few assumptions and the investment cost based on the base price and an assumed lifetime of the substation / heat exchanger. The calculations have been made for both residential and non-residential buildings. The difference in capacity requirement per area (kW/m2) between residential and non-residential buildings is mainly due to the greater demand of hot water in residential buildings. For larger residential buildings, the same numbers are used as for small (singels-family) houses.

General costs and assumptions

Table 1

*Converted from EUR/MWh to EUR / kilowatt hour

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle †\text{Product of } (0), (1)$

$\displaystyle ‡\text{Product of } (0), (2)$

$\displaystyle §\text{Product of } (3), (7)$

$\displaystyle ¶\text{Product of } (4), (8)$

**Rounded to the nearest whole

References

[1]: AGFW: Statistik, Fernwärme Preisübersicht 
 https://www.fernwaerme-info.com/fileadmin/Redakteure/fernwaerme-info/F%C3%B6rderung_und_Kosten/Kosten_und_Preise/Preis%C3%BCbersicht_Webexemplar.pdf

Average area served

Table 2

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle *(2) / (0)$

$\displaystyle †(3) / (1)$

‡Rounded to the nearest ten
§Rounded to the nearest houndred

References

[1]: AGFW: Statistik, Fernwärme Preisübersicht 
 https://www.fernwaerme-info.com/fileadmin/Redakteure/fernwaerme-info/F%C3%B6rderung_und_Kosten/Kosten_und_Preise/Preis%C3%BCbersicht_Webexemplar.pdf
[2]: See Table 1

Energy cost

Table 3

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle *\text{Product of } (0), (2)$

$\displaystyle †\text{Product of } (1), (3)$

$\displaystyle ‡(4) - (6)$

$\displaystyle §(5) - (7)$

$\displaystyle ¶(8) / (10)$

$\displaystyle **(9) / (11)$

$\displaystyle ††\text{Average of } (12), (13)$

‡‡Rounded to the nearest houndredth

References

[1]: AGFW: Statistik, Fernwärme Preisübersicht 
 https://www.fernwaerme-info.com/fileadmin/Redakteure/fernwaerme-info/F%C3%B6rderung_und_Kosten/Kosten_und_Preise/Preis%C3%BCbersicht_Webexemplar.pdf
[2]: See Table 1
[3]: Commercial cost comparison site 
 https://kostencheck.de/fernwaerme-kosten
[4]: Estimated value based on commercial provider 
 https://www.energie-saarlorlux.com/geschaeftskunden/fernwaerme-fuer-geschaeftskunden/fernwaerme-im-gewerbe/

Investment costs

Table 4

* Assumed same as for other heating systems

A number in parentheses represents the row in question

$\displaystyle †(0) - (2)$

$\displaystyle ‡(1) - (3)$

$\displaystyle §\text{Product of } (4), (6)$

$\displaystyle ¶\text{Product of } (5), (6)$

**Rounded to the nearest thousand

References

[1]: See Table 1
[2]: See Table 3