FT: EU energy security: in hot water

When looking for scapegoats for the EU’s energy crisis and our dependence on Russian gas, it is all too easy to attack “district heating”.

District heating is the main way that cities are heated in eastern Europe and the Soviet-era infrastructure can often be wastefully inefficient, as we write about in a story today.

But don’t write it off too quickly. The truth is that western Europe is probably going to see a lot more of this technology in the next decade as it rethinks its urban energy consumption.

Indeed, the concept behind district heating is rapidly finding new devotees in western Europe and China. The technology has a lot to recommend it. It takes the heat that would otherwise be wasted from power plants and then uses it to warm water which is pumped round apartment blocks. It’s not great for terraced houses and isolated villas but for big blocks, it does the trick.
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