Hi,

I thought some of you might be interested in the work of my council's energy company - Göteborg Energi. A limited company owned by me and the rest of us taxpayers here, Göteborg Energi manage, amongst other things, both the local electricity network, and the local "fjärrvärme" network - "remote heating" network. They are now nearly completely fossil fuel free - it's only in harsh winters like last march (2018) that they had to fire up a couple of their older oil boilers.

Most of the city's central heating comes from heat recovered from two giant waste incinerators in Utby, east gothenburg (this process has however resulted in particles falling into the nearby sea). The other main sources of heat are via heat pumps installed in the city's sewage processing plant, heat pumps installed in the port's oil refineries, and heat pumps in the river. Scaninavia's biggest solarcell park has just gone online in Säve north west of the city centre.

Almost all the flats, offices and industrial parks in gothenburg are connected to this heat network, and a large portion of the houses. The model is repeated in almost all Swedish municipal areas.

Göteborg Energi have even recently built and installed China's first "remote" heating plant, which also uses Swedish automation.

Their success is due to many things - the relationship with Chalmers University, the freedom to experiment, and I'm sure the stability afforded by their owners - Gothenburg Council - who's revenue stream is local people's income tax. This means the council has no dependency on central government for finance, so are free to make their own plans.

You can read more about Göteborg Energi here: https://www.goteborgenergi.se/english/about-us

Aberdeen city council have a CHP district heat company with a network all across the city, though not as advanced as Gothenburg sounds. They supply 2350 flats and 15 public buildings. The key to success seems to be having a mix of users that require heat at different times of day/year - eg they have put CHP generators in some schools that deliver heat into the public swimming pools and council offices during the daytime and the council flats over night, increasing the run time of the generators.
https://www.aberdeenheatandpower.co.uk/about/