Managing residential demand response in district heating systems: A review of coordination strategies

Residential district heating demand response offers significant potential for enhancing system flexibility and supporting decarbonization, yet widespread implementation remains limited. While technical feasibility has been demonstrated in numerous studies, a systematic understanding of how different demand response approaches shape utility-customer interactions and implementation requirements remains fragmented. Through a systematic review of 26 studies, we analyze utility-customer interactions across five key dimensions: goals, thermal comfort, intelligence mechanisms, coordination strategies, and incentive structures and identify three distinct interaction patterns that emerge from different coordination approaches: direct utility control, dynamic price signals, and static price incentives. Our synthesis of quantitative evidence from field studies and simulations reveals characteristic performance outcomes and implementation requirements for each pattern. Direct utility control demonstrates reliable peak management capabilities of 5%–35% maximum power reduction, but requires substantial infrastructure investment and faces unresolved challenges in incentive design. Dynamic price signals enable customer systems to respond to variable production costs, with reported outcomes ranging from 4%–65% peak load reduction and 1%–53% cost savings depending on price elasticity and coordination approach, though purely decentralized implementations face risks of synchronized responses that can amplify rather than reduce peaks. Static price incentives achieve moderate, sustained peak reductions (10%–20%) with minimal infrastructure requirements but lack short-term flexibility. This systematic analysis provides utilities with evidence-based understanding of the operational implications, performance characteristics, and implementation challenges associated with each coordination approach. • Reviews studies on residential demand response in district heating. • Shifts focus from technical capability to critical utility-customer coordination. • Identifies three patterns: direct control, dynamic pricing, static tariff incentives. • Reveals how coordination choice fundamentally shapes entire demand response scheme. • Guides utilities on implementation needs and outcomes for each coordination approach.