A spatially-explicit method for generating prospective district heating scenarios

District Heating Networks (DHNs) constitute a potentially powerful lever to decarbonise the heating supply and provide flexibility to power systems soon to be dominated by solar and wind production. To accurately quantify this potential, one needs to project the development of DHNs and their production mix. This article proposes a method for generating large-scale district heating development scenarios based on geographical data. The main inputs used to project DHN development are: spatial datasets of heat demand, spatial datasets of local low-carbon heating sources, spatial datasets of existing DHNs associated with corresponding supplied energy, and representative DHN cases. Taking these factors into account narrows the range of possibilities for the DHN production mix, providing more realistic scenarios while keeping the option to explore contrasted development paths. This method represents an advancement in DHN prospective as it combines precise local source potential assessment with scenario generation. As a case study, we apply the method on European Union countries and the United Kingdom (EU27+UK) for 2050 by generating three DHN scenarios: supplied energies of 820 TWh, 631 TWh, and 555 TWh, against 370 TWh currently. These three scenarios feature very diverse levels of local low-carbon source integration (accounting for excess heat, geothermal, biomass and solar): respectively 485 TWh, 388 TWh, and 337 TWh are harnessed; demonstrating how developing DHNs is crucial to harness local low-carbon heat sources. A focus on Denmark is performed to compare these results with established literature, and better understand what drives them. We complete this analysis by testing the sensitivity of local source potentials to various assumptions. • A method for generating district heating scenarios based on geographical analysis. • Precise assessment of local low-carbon source potentials for district heating. • Case study: generation and analysis of DHN scenarios for European countries. • Case study: comparison of Danish DHN scenarios with the literature. • Case study: sensitivity analysis on local sources potentials.