Budapest Heat Ring Programme

Case study

Aims of the project:

Budapest submitted application for European Green Capital Award 2020. As part of it, one of its main targets is to improve the air quality of the city.
To achieve this in mid-term is to improve the disctrict heating network which -due to historical background- is partly missing: only 40% of inhabitants of the 2-million-capital have direct access to district heating. Further, the existing network consists of geographically separated district heating islands, operating on their own.
The multi-year Budapest Heat Ring Programme aims to connect up seperately run district heating islands in order to establish a unified heat network, to provide access to district heating in areas not covered by the existing network and to integrate more renewable heat sources.
The Programme is made up of severel sections, one of them currently underway is the Chimney Free Inner City Project that provides access to the heat network by public institutions, residential blocks and office centres downtown, thus contributing to the elimination of smog alerts in the capital.

Outcomes:

The interconnection of the separately run heating islands will:

  • enhance security of supply,
  • reduce costs by enabling competition among heat producers,
  • create an alternative for replacement of obsolete individual gas or solid fuel heating equipments with more environmental friendly district heating,
  • create the infrastructure to integrate new green heat sources (e.g. biomass),
  • help to eliminate smog alerts.

Approximately 50 km DN300-DN800 DH pipelines and 7 pump stations will be built in the coming years and the still unsupplied Inner City (with significant heatable space) will be integrated into the DH network.

Impacts:

Once operational, the above programme will lead to much cleaner air in the capital, less air-pollution related diseases, less natural gas dependance and enhanced renewable energy based heat production. People’s awareness of environmental friendly district heating will be enhanced.

The project will contribute significantly to meet Hungary’s pledges and targets of the Paris Climate Agreement.

Main figures:

  • CO2 abatement: 160 kt/year.
  • Natural gas replacement: 85Mm3/year.

Project details:

Organisation: Municipality of Budapest

Funding:  Co-founded by the European Union. The programme is being/will be realized by the Budapest District Heating Works (Budapesti Távhőszolgáltató Zrt.), owned 100% by the Municipality of Budapest.

Total project cost: The multi-year programme has a budget of more than £150 M.

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