Stakeholder dialogue on municipal heat planning

Municipal heat planning makes a significant contribution towards ensuring that the heat supply becomes greenhouse gas-neutral by 2045. It is an important instrument for the coordinated development of energy infrastructure at local level. It increases planning and investment security for local stakeholders. 

With the stakeholder dialogue, the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action support authorities at local and state level in heat planning. The dialogue is intended to support a largely uniform approach by the municipalities, based on the objectives and requirements of the German Heat Planning Act. The dialogue process should also help ensure that heat planning is seen by the public, citizens and companies as a task that affects everyone, makes sense and can be solved. 

dena provides support in this process. All activities are carried out in close cooperation with the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development at the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building and the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action.

The "Stakeholder Dialogue on Municipal Heat Planning" project consists of communication tasks:

• designing, organising, implementing and following up on the kick-off event in July 2024,
• Organisation and implementation of three specialist workshops from October 2024 to March 2025
• Implementation of the final workshop in May 2025. 

On the other hand, the content design is also part of the project: Key topics are developed, coordinated with the ministries and further developed in the course of the workshop series. The topics discussed are further developed in the course of the project and the results are recorded in the form of papers.

Possible key topics include, for example:

• Collection of data and data availability for determining future heating requirements for buildings and for planning processes
• Simplified heat planning procedures, shortened heat planning or implementation in convoy
• Identifying interfaces between heat planning and urban development planning
• Identifying interfaces between heat planning and energy infrastructure planning

• November 2025: Publication of documentation report on stakeholder dialogue on heat planning. To the publication
• June 2025: Publication of the stakeholder dialogue on heat planning results paper. The results paper summarises the key messages from the stakeholders involved in four central working groups. To the publication
• 11 June 2025: Closing event of the stakeholder dialogue on heat planning
• 19 March 2025: Technical workshop III: Prioritisation and specific recommendations
• 15 January 2025: Technical workshop II: Discussion of initial solutions
• 17 October 2024: Technical workshop I: Identification of challenges and conflicting objectives