The DHC+ Working Group Digitalisation produced this report in an attempt to share with the broader industrial DHC community an up-to-date vision of the role of digitalisation in the growth and evolution of the challenges that operators, asset developers and, most importantly, end users are facing, given the reliability of heating and cooling supply and, more generally, the energy sector’s decarbonisation challenges.
The current document does not focus on specific technologies or solutions but instead, it presents how their application can be effective – occasionally necessary – in resolving operational issues and improving the overall efficiency and long-term sustainability of heat provision in increasingly complex scenarios.
To help the reader navigate through the current insights, the report:
- provides a brief introduction to the role of digitalisation in modern District Heating and Cooling;
- helps put things in perspective, reminding the long-term vision for the DHC industry, to understand the transition path we are going through and the complexity it entails;
- presents the end user and building’s perspective, which represents the segment of the value chain that, to date, bears the largest untapped potential;
- takes a deep dive into customer data exploitation in the age of GDPR: a crucial aspect to have in mind;
- suggests a logical roadmap to digital uptake, both to assess the current status and plan how to move forward;
- showcases a few selected best practices to inspire action.
The authors and contributors are all members of the DHC+ Working Group on Digitalisation:
Matteo Pozzi (Optit srl), Jan Eric Thorsen & Oddgeir Gudmundsson (Danfoss), Anna Marszal-Pomianowska & Per Heiselberg (Aalborg University), Steen Schelle Jensen (Kamstrup), Ard de Reus & Michel de Koning (Gradyent), Bertrand Guillemot (Dalkia), Ilaria Marini (A2A Calore e Servizi), Dirk Vanhoudt (EnergyVille/VITO), Helen Carlström (EON).
