Future Heat Highway

From 2050 onwards, all heat in district heating networks must come from renewable sources or waste heat (Energy Efficiency Directive Art. 26). District heating offers an excellent opportunity to use industrial waste heat and other low-temperature heat sources efficiently. Supra-regional district heating networks play a central role in this by being able to absorb this heat and broadly distribute it. The project therefore focuses on the expansion of such district heating transport lines, which will also integrate industrial waste heat available in the future and thus provide climate-neutral heat efficiently.. As part of Future Heat Highway, supra-regional district heating networks are being investigated that involve a large number of actors and link multiple components with one another: (I) industrial waste heat and other sustainable sources, (II) existing and future district heating networks, (III) industrial process heat sinks and (IV) heat storage.

Building on the Heat Highway predecessor project, the next step is to drive forward the implementation of Heat Highway technology and the use of waste heat that will become available in Austria’s industrial regions. One of the aspects being investigated is the integration of available industrial waste heat, as major technological changes are already taking place or are planned in the short and medium term, particularly in the steel and chemical sectors (EAF, electrolysis). Other points include the cascaded use of biomass in the paper industry, the integration of large (seasonal) storage structures into the network, or the integration of industries as prosumers (which feed waste heat into the network at certain times and draw heat from it at others). The storage and transport properties of the Heat Highway also enable new business models that use cheap electricity via technologies such as heat pumps and make it available at later times in the form of district heating. With regard to the points above, technical requirements are analysed, and tools for evaluating techno-economic feasibility are developed and adapted to the specific analytical requirements, particularly to assess competitiveness against other renewable alternatives.

Project Progress

The project is developing roll-out plans for four regions, each with a specific focus: In the Upper Austrian central area around Linz, the focus is on the development of EAF steel production and hydrogen electrolysis in the chemical sector. In Styria, the focus is on connecting the large waste heat sources in the Mur and Mürz valleys with the Graz metropolitan area. In this context, heat supply in combination with (seasonal) storage is being investigated, along with the future waste heat potential of the cement industry, industry-to-industry business models and the prosumer concept in the paper industry. In the Salzkammergut and St. Pölten regions, the concept of a regional district heating connection is being considered in order to integrate waste heat from bio-based industries and electrolysis plants into the energy system, complementing heat from thermal waste recovery and geothermal energy.

(Expected) Results

The main objective of Future Heat Highway is to support the pioneering regions in implementing the most promising opportunities.