Heating transition in the hot summer and cold winter zone of China: District heating or individual heating?

Heating transition in the hot summer and cold winter zone is crucial for China's energy transition towards carbon neutrality. However, future heating solutions for this region remain debated, particularly whether to use district heating. This study proposes an analytical framework for this region to compare district heating with individual heating from a novel energy system perspective. Taking Shanghai as an illustrative case, this study simulates and compares five heating solutions based on energy systems for 2019, 2030 and 2060, considering future trends of energy transition. The results reveal that switching to a clean district heating system from the current individual heating system has the potential to save energy by up to 1.4 % and reduce emissions by up to 3.9 %. Moreover, this strategy could result in a cost reduction of 0.2 % and a biomass saving of 5 % in a carbon-neutral energy system of 2060. Sensitivity analyses confirm the desirability of the clean district heating system for achieving carbon-neutrality in terms of energy and cost savings. Therefore, district heating should not be outside the heating strategy for the hot summer and cold winter zone, and the proposed analytical framework is suggested to be applied in heat planning for this region.