In the first part of the Suburban Heat Shift project, the scientists developed two main heating network concepts for the town center of Leeste in the municipality of Weyhe. Since the end of the first project phase, on the one hand, the political funding landscape has changed. On the other hand, both energy and construction costs have risen (sometimes sharply), the data basis has grown and political discussions have been held in the municipality, which should be taken into account as part of a revision process. In addition, since the start of the second project phase, the researchers have further developed the optimization tools used and have taken into account additional aspects, such as local weather data or the final mapping of operating cost subsidies for the use of heat pumps in the grid-connected scenarios.

The second project phase started with the scientists determinating and presenting the updated heating network concepts for concrete implementation. This publication shows which technical generator concepts represent the most cost-effective solution for the planned heating network under different framework conditions for the three expansion stages examined in the center of Leeste. At the same time, it shows how the different scenarios are to be evaluated from the perspective of the connected households and, in particular, how the grid-connected supply solution compares to a decentralized, building-specific heat supply.