U.S. District Energy Services Market Characterization
Release Date: February 14, 2018
In a district energy system, a central plant or plants produce steam, hot water, or chilled water, which is then pumped through a network of insulated pipes to provide space heating, cooling, and/or hot water for nearby connected customer buildings. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) contracted this report from ICF L.L.C. to inform modeling and analysis of domestic district energy systems.
District energy allows customers to save space and expenses by avoiding individual installation, operation, and maintenance of in-building heating, cooling, and water-heating equipment. Using economies of scale, district energy systems often distribute heat generated by combined heat and power (CHP) systems to use thermal energy that is produced more efficiently. District energy systems are more commonly found in commercial clusters of buildings such as colleges, hospitals, downtowns, healthcare, and government campuses.
ICF worked with the International District Energy Association’s (IDEA) database of 660 existing district energy systems operating in the United States. In 2012, an estimated 5.5 billion square feet of heating floorspace and 1.9 billion square feet of cooling floorspace were serviced by district energy. District energy characteristics are provided by Census division (Table 1) and by fuel type (Table 2).
| Census division | Heating gross square footage served |
Cooling gross square footage served |
|---|---|---|
| New England | 350,911,392 | 95,141,891 |
| Middle Atlantic | 1,497,478,221 | 200,603,217 |
| East North Central | 991,553,018 | 395,790,579 |
| West North Central | 570,177,893 | 158,611,465 |
| South Atlantic | 813,768,087 | 288,977,364 |
| East South Central | 158,622,454 | 94,156,827 |
| West South Central | 359,938,693 | 316,360,508 |
| Mountain | 188,521,265 | 117,605,771 |
| Pacific | 520,343,083 | 210,321,556 |
| Total | 5,451,314,105 | 1,877,569,178 |
| * Note that heating and cooling gross square footage overlap for many systems, so the regional amounts are not additive. | ||
| Fuel | Non-CHP heating (MMBtu) | Non-CHP cooling (MMBtu) | CHP (MMBtu) | Total (MMBtu) | Percent of total fuel use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coal | 58,998,023 | 0 | 97,000,378 | 155,998,401 | 16% |
| Electricity | 0 | 14,238,482 | 0 | 14,238,482 | 1% |
| Natural gas | 372,251,735 | 6,049,694 | 342,242,633 | 720,544,063 | 74% |
| Oil | 11,160,227 | 13,135 | 13,980,363 | 25,153,725 | 3% |
| Other (Biomass) |
19,729,303 | 0 | 42,209,336 | 61,938,639 | 6% |
| Total | 462,139,288 | 20,301,311 | 495,432,710 | 977,873,309 | 100% |
When referencing the contract report, it should be cited as a report by ICF International, L.L.C. prepared for the U.S. Energy Information Administration.