Energisäkerheten för fjärrvärmeanläggningars bränsletillförsel i Mälardalsområdet
There are several energy systems in the Swedish society and to ensure the comfort and health of the citizens it is of importance that the different energy systems are functioning properly. District heating is one of these energy systems and many household depend only on district heating to warm up their homes.
District heating is dependent on several processes where every step needs to function in order to deliver the produced heat to the end consumer. Previous studies have investigated the distribution of district heating and how to make customers choose district heating as their heating method. The supply of fuel to the district heating plant has not been studied as much, even though it is an important part of the whole system. This thesis is a part of the project NORD-STAR (Nordic Strategic Adaption
Research), which has focused on climate adaption in the Nordic countries. This is the background of why this thesis, among other factors, analyzes how climate change will affect the fuel supply to district heating plants.
In this thesis fuel managers or purchasers at several district heating systems in the region of Mälardalen have been interviewed. A literature review has been made to get another perspective and study visits have been conducted to three district heating plants with significant difference in
production capacity.
According to the investigations, planned deliveries of district heating rarely fail. Shortage of heat to
consumers due to absence of fuel deliveries has not happened yet, according to the survey. Disturbances in fuel deliveries have occurred and are common, but the district heating systems have enough of different fuel stocks to avoid disruption of heat production. The interviewees consider themselves to be prepared for multiple possible scenarios.
The interviewed have not made any changes to adapt to climate change in general and they are not worried about future fuel supply. Concerning the future, they do not expect more problems to get fuel to the plants. In the near future there is most likely nothing that can imperil fuel deliveries to the district heating plants. It is, however, possible that there will be an increased competition for biomass in the long run, because of new and expanded application areas for biomass, such as transportation
fuel, bio plastic material, etc.
The district heating sector is completely dependent on transportation and logistics, mainly by trucks since they can access all forest areas. There are no other vehicles that can replace trucks in the near future and currently they are dependent on fossil fuel and personnel. This is, however, not unique to district heating. There are several other energy systems dependent on both fossil fuels and truck transportation.