According to the amended German directive to support renewable energies in the heat market (15th March 2011), solar collectors which feed into district heating networks are explicitly supported for the first time.
The feed-in into new and existing block and district heating networks is considered a future market for solar thermal heat. Denmark is a role model where already a number of municipalities are supplied by solar assisted district heating systems. But not only the ground mounted collector fields in Denmark can be a model. The district heating supplier E.ON Hanse in Hamburg is working on a feed-in model with roof mounted solar collectors on residential houses which are owned by district heating customers feeding-in their produced heat into the network and getting refund.
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