Potential of treated wastewater as an energy source for district heating: Incorporating social elements into a multi-factorial comparative assessment for cities

Recovering waste heat from urban infrastructures is gaining greater importance in the context of decarbonisation. However, evaluating the feasibility of waste heat recovery projects requires a holistic analysis of potential impacts, which includes social elements that are often overlooked. This paper introduces a novel methodology for assessing the competitiveness of waste heat integration into district heating, based on a multi-factorial decision support tool that incorporates energy poverty as a key performance indicator, in addition to energy, environmental and economic factors. The comparative assessment is based on the implementation of large-scale heat pumps recovering wastewater heat, a resource of great potential that is still underutilised in Europe. The methodology is tested in the cities of London and Riga, which are in countries with significantly different stages of DH development. In London, an emerging market with high growth potential, and in Riga, where there is a well-established DH system. The study has shown that waste heat can significantly reduce consumers' bills for heating, which was observed in all analysed scenarios. The social benefit decreases when the replaced technology involves biomass heat-only boilers or combined heat and power. The methodology presented is generic and can be applied to other locations and heat sources.