Project meeting Wärme-ZIEL on 5 June 2026 in Reppenstedt

Project meeting Wärme-ZIEL on 5 June 2026 in Reppenstedt

The implementation of municipal heat planning was the focus of the semi-annual meeting of the "Wärme-ZIEL" research project in Reppenstedt near Lüneburg on 5 June 2026. Representatives from science, municipalities and the energy industry discussed current challenges of the heating transition and discussed the next steps in the project. To kick things off, Claudia Kemfert gave an overview of the current status of the heating transition in Germany and explained new political framework conditions. Dana Kirchem then presented the DIETER energy system model developed at DIW Berlin, which is used in the project to calculate the system-cost-optimized decarbonization of the heating networks in Lüneburg. Caroline Stiel presented insights into the regional social structure with an interactive dashboard for the Lüneburg region. On the basis of small-scale census data, it enables a differentiated view of the distribution of socio-economic characteristics in the individual municipalities. Following on from this, employees of the ECOLOG Institute presented selected districts in which various participation and intervention formats are planned in the further course of the project. The meeting concluded with an excursion to the control centre of the new local heating network in the Schnellenberger Weg development area, during which the participants gained practical insights into the local implementation of the heating transition. In the further course of the project, the researchers will investigate how municipal heat planning can be successfully implemented on site. The exchange on site was very valuable for this and set new impulses for further work.