Advantages
of district heating

• more efficient use of primary energy, both when it is made in cogeneration plants and when waste heat from industrial processes is used
• possibility of exploiting renewable energy sources (biomass, geothermal, solar thermal), energy recovery from thermal waste or industrial processes and at zero cost
• greater energy security, resulting from the possibility of using several locally available energy sources at the same time
• more controls on exhaust gases and effective abatement of emitted pollutants than in a scenario where, for the same fuel, heat is generated locally by small individual boilers
• in newly built houses, reduction of investment costs for the construction of the heating plant.

A technology used in some district heating contexts is the exploitation of heat for district cooling through the absorption refrigeration cycle. The direct use of a heat source to produce cooling constitutes an increase in system efficiency and energy savings, especially if the heat comes from a district heating plant that receives waste heat from other processes (e.g. industrial processes) interconnected to the district heating network itself.