Scarce resources for heat planning

27.11.2024

More and more municipalities in Germany are working on heating plans. However, there are personnel and financial bottlenecks. This is shown by the results of the 2024 local authority survey.

The annual municipal survey claims to reflect the status quo, obstacles and potential of municipal heat planning from a municipal perspective. For this year's survey, almost 1,000 local authorities answered questions from the German Energy Agency's (Dena) Competence Center for the Municipal Heating Transition (KWW) via online and telephone in June and July. The questions concerned costs and services, the level of knowledge, stakeholder participation, quality and data issues in municipal heating planning.

A comparison with the previous year's results leads KWW to the following conclusions: The proportion of municipalities that already have a heating plan or are actively working on creating one is increasing. Smaller municipalities in particular often rely on cooperation by organizing themselves in so-called convoys or municipal associations. This allows them to pool limited resources and make the planning process more efficient. Nevertheless, getting started with heat planning remains difficult for many smaller municipalities due to a lack of resources.

Obstacles to heat planning

Heat planning is increasingly recognized as a strategic tool that contributes significantly to achieving climate neutrality. However, the survey shows that local authorities continue to struggle with numerous obstacles:

• For example, there is often a lack of basic data required for inventory and potential analyses.
• The financing of specific measures as part of the heating transition also remains unclear in many places.
• Another problem is the involvement of relevant stakeholders, which municipalities consider to be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Although cooperation with local partners such as municipal utilities should play a central role, the survey shows that in many cases they have not yet been involved in the planning processes at all.

Another key issue is the need for personnel. Many municipalities report that the personnel capacities required for heat planning exceed the resources actually available. On average, a municipality needs around one and a half full-time employees to implement the planning, while often only one position is available. This particularly affects small and medium-sized municipalities, which are also affected by limited financial leeway. The costs for external planning services, which local authorities often have to use, have risen by eleven percent compared to the previous year. However, this increase remains below original expectations. According to KWW, this indicates that the market has not yet experienced any serious cost increases despite increased demand.

Importance of heating plans recognized

Despite these challenges, the municipalities surveyed emphasize the importance of heat plans for achieving climate targets. These plans serve as a basis for prioritizing measures and strategically tackling the transformation in the heating sector. At the same time, however, many heating plans still have gaps, primarily in terms of concrete financing planning and implementation timescales. The KWW believes that local authorities still need political and organizational support with implementation.

The KWW offers support measures to better assist local authorities with heat planning. A current KWW guideline provides information on the targeted involvement of specialist stakeholders and contains templates to facilitate the planning process.

In addition, sample service specifications are available to support local authorities in the tendering and awarding of planning services. A specially created service provider directory helps to find suitable companies that can support local authorities in drawing up their heating plans.

KWW municipal survey 2024 on municipal heating planning (KWP)

Further information on the heating transition and municipal heating planning

Author: Davina Spohn, E&M powernews