KWAPE – Municipal heat planning to activate private house owners

Owner-occupiers of single-family or two-family houses play a decisive role shaping the heat transition through their private investment decisions. They decide whether, and if so when and how extensively, they refurbish their houses, when they switch their heating systems and whether they connect to a heating network. They are often overwhelmed by these decisions and are further unsettled by changing economic and political conditions. With municipal heat planning, municipalities develop in principle a comprehensive concept for the heat transition but often face difficulties convincing owner-occupiers and coordinating their decisions. Existing offers for consultations, support and financing have not yet led to the necessary acceleration of the heat transition.

Against this background, we investigate with the project KWAPE, which measures municipalities can take to activate owner-occupiers of single-family or two-family houses for the heat transition. To this end, we take the perspectives of both the municipalities and the house owners into account. Opinions, motives, and barriers of owner-occupiers are gathered with a nationwide survey. In cooperation with the two pilot municipalities of Tübingen and Elmshorn, the project examines which supply solutions for decentralized areas were considered in the heating plans and how these can be evaluated economically in comparison to alternative concepts. A focus is on collaborative, cross-building approaches. On this basis, new approaches for involving owner-occupiers are being developed and tested in the pilot municipalities. Regular exchange with a municipal network of about 15 municipalities and various dissemination products ensure the transferability and the dissemination of the results to other municipalities.

In this project, the IÖW is particularly concerned with the economic evaluation of the heat supply solutions from the heat plans, as well as alternative solutions. Local conditions and the preferences of the owners are taken into account in this assessment. We investigate how high the respective investment requirements are, what financing options are available, and which solutions would be cost-effective and feasible for single-family or two-family homeowners.