رقابت در بازار برای گرم کردن فضا. حرارت منطقه به عنوان زیرساخت برای رقابت در میان سوخت و فن آوری

None of the EU directives on liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets are considering the district heating systems, although the district heating networks offer the possibility of competition between natural gas and a range of other fuels on the market for space heating. Cogeneration of electricity and heat for industrial processes or district heating is a technology option for increased energy efficiency and thus reduction of CO2 emissions. In the mid-1990s less than 10% of the electricity generation in the European Union was combined production with significant variations among Member States. These variations are explained by different national legislation and relative power of institutions, rather than difference in industrial structure, climate or urban physical structure. The ‘single energy carrier’ directives have provisions that support the development of combined heat and power (CHP), but they do not support the development and expansion of the district heating infrastructure. The article is partly based on a contribution to the Shared Analysis Project for the European Commission DG Energy, concerning the penetration of CHP, energy saving, and renewables as instruments to meet the targets of the Kyoto Protocol within the liberalised European energy market. The quantitative and legal differences of the heat markets in selected Member States are described, and the consequences of the directives are discussed. Finally, we summarise the tasks for a European policy concerning the future regulation of district heating networks for CHP, emphasising the need for rules for a fair competition between natural gas and district heating networks.

The primary intention of the EU electricity and gas directives is to make the electricity and natural gas markets part of the internal market. The overall objective has been to increase the availability of electricity and gas at more competitive prices for the benefit of the final consumers. The same objective was the motivation for the nationalisation of the electricity and other energy industries in several Western European countries—notably France, UK and Italy—a few decades ago. All these measures share the same strengths and weaknesses: They may increase the efficiency of energy supply by a single energy carrier—electricity or gas—by economies of scale, rational organisation and standardisation, or by introducing competition into an industry that is dominated by monopolies. On the other hand, they may be obstacles to a synergetic use of the various energy carriers at the local or regional level. The best illustration is the very different penetration of combined heat and power (CHP) for district heating in north-west Europe. The article is partly based on a contribution to the Shared Analysis Project1 for the European Commission DG Energy, concerning the penetration of CHP, energy saving, and renewables as instruments to meet the targets of the Kyoto Protocol within the liberalised European energy market (Grohnheit, 1999). We shall focus on obstacles and lost opportunities for the development of district heating systems as a necessary infrastructure for further penetration of these technologies, emphasising the legal issue systems (Gram Mortensen, 1998 (1998) and Gram Mortensen, 1998 (2000)). We discuss the methods to introduce competition in the market for space heating, where the real choice of consumers is limited, either by traditional regulation or by past investment and sunk cost. We are using Denmark as the main example, because the penetration of district heating has gone much further than in the large countries in north-west Europe, in spite of no significant difference in climate and the urban physical structure. The main explanation is the relative power of various institutions. Most of the features of development in Denmark are also found in Germany, but their relative importance has been different. The institutions in countries, where the utilities were nationalised (in particular France and the UK) are very different from those in Germany and Scandinavia. The main difference is the role of local government. Further, we describe the existing and potential European market for district heating emphasising the possibilities for a quantitative evaluation of the impact of new technologies, and finally, we summarise the tasks for a European policy concerning the future regulation of district heating networks for CHP.