Summary of the Milan District heating system View
Milan District Heating System
Milan is a global city with points of excellence in different fields, from business to culture. It is located in the middle of one of the most populated area in Europe and thus it represents one of the most important potential for DH expansion in EU (around 6 TWh/year). DH started in the early 90s. During the years many small network were developed as stand-alone systems spreaded in the urban area of the city. Starting from 2008 a new approach was adopted. It foresee large investments in network expansion with the aim of interconnecting the existing small networks and to create 3 wide system in the West, East and North of the city. This plan was carried out by 200 M€ investment. Interconnection makes possible the recovery of larger quantities of heat from existing production units (often owned by 3rd parties) available in the area, the integration of locally available renewable heat from groundwater. But the most important effect is by far represented by the growth of heat recovery from the WTE plants which increased of 280% over the 5 years. This was achieved only by increasing the overall efficiency of the WTE process (thanks to DH) without increasing the amount of treated waste. The heat delivered to DH costumers doubled from 2008 to 2013, passing from 453 to 909 GWh. Despite this strong development it is expected that the already performed investments, can consolidate their effects in the coming years resulting in a further important increase of the system dimension.