Against the background of the Mariager Fjord project, which assess a possible common district heating transmission system, the challenges of organising, connecting and jointly operating waste incineration, biomass heat, natural gas CHP and surplus heat will be analysed. The analysis will lead to recommendations for the planning of third-party access.
Project description
The EFP project will analyse the political, regulatory and legal challenges, which must be dealt with before connecting district heating systems, in order to obtain the advantages of coproduction. The experiences and regulations from the liberalisation of the electrical system is utilised for inspiration. The EFP project utilises the ''Project Mariager Fjord'' as its case, the experiences concerning interaction between various types of heat and power production is utilised as the basis of the project. The experiences, combined with a general analysis will be used to clarify the political, legal, technical and physical connection issues which the project is to include. ''Project Mariager Fjord'' is a preliminary evaluation of the possibilities for establishment of a transmission system in the area surrounding Mariager Fjord, carried out by I/S Fælles Forbrænding assisted by Rambøll. ''Project Mariager Fjord'' will be used as a starting point for the analysis of the challenges in organisation, coproduction and managing a transmission system with various production plants. In relation to the EFP project a steering committee will be formed by I/S Fælles Forbrænding, which will include members from heatplants, local council, other producers and I/S Fælles Forbrænding. The steering committee will contribute to the project by participating in a startup seminar in april/may 2008 and a seminar in the fall of 2008. The seminars are utilised for ''test'' and discussion of the ideas in the EFP project and test these in relation to ''Project Mariager Fjord''
Results
The aim of the project was to analyze what pre-work is required before any linkage of district heating networks can occur, i.e. what does it take to five third party access to the district heating network and gain the benefits from co-production from district heating networks. The trend in the project has moved from ''3. party access'' - where all the utilities would like/can offer increased heat supply to the other - against ''Efficiency and optimisation trough open cooperation''. The following summarizes the actions required to facilitate third party access in the heat supply. It is noted that this should be interpreted broadly based on the aim to promote a socio-economic use of energy for heating in areas already supplied with district heating or areas that could be supplied with district heating. - 1) Heating networks should be owned or controlled by consumers and municipalities. This ensures that all heat in the area is supplied when it is beneficial to consumers; - 2) It should be possible to ecpropriate a private property that is particularly suitable for new generation capacity because it has access to the necessary infrastructure if it is not possible to realize a project with the current owner. This ensures that a private owner of land, i.e. a power plant site with port access, electricity and heating networks with the status of natural monopoly, could not misuse his position; - 3) District heating networks shall announce a purchase price of heat for the network, which reflects the value of produced heat, at least on a monthly basis and preferably on an hourly basis. This allows all connected users to connect their own heat production plants to meet the load curve demand against paying the investment cost in establisheing the connection; - 4) The Heat Supply Act must be strengthened so that local municipalities again have the possibility of imposing a collective heat supply plant that uses certain forms of energy types in the production. This ensures the implementation of projects that are socio-economically favorable. An injunction should be subjected to the fact that the heat is not more expensive than the alternative;- 5) The municipalities should be authorized, in collaboration with Danish Energy Regulatory Authority (DERA), to appoint a mediator to facilitate negotiations between the public heating system plant owners, if an agreement could not be achieved voluntarily. DERA should be able to lift a mediation proposal by the mediator to an existing agreement between the parties if no agreement is reached; - 6) The Building Code must be strengthened so it promotes socio-conomically viable projects for heating of new buildings. The current discrimination of district heating in relation to local heat production must be replaced by genuine equality. It is noted that the district heating is only relevant if it is socio-economically advantageous. Alternatively, heat supply should completely be left out in the Building Code, so that heat supply is determined in the Heat Supply Act; - 7) In consequence of the above, exemption for teh connection to district heating for low energy houses should no longer be given. Instead, DERA should announce guidelines for maximum limits for connection charges to the district heating system, so that they do not exceed low-energy houses' alternative investments in heat pumps and solar heating
