District heating and district cooling

District heating

Steam or hot water that are transported through isolated pipes to households and other consumers, and are getting utilised for heating and hot water. The heat is produced by combustion of garbage/wastes, or by utilising sewer, wood, coal, oil, electricity , heat pumps, industrial waste or other energy products.

District heating plant

A plant that delivers heat through a pipe system to customers outside the company from a heating central with a dimensioned effect of at least 1 MW.

Combined heat and power plant / Cogeneration plant

A plant that produce both district heating and electricity

District cooling plant

A plant that delivers cooling through a pipe system to customers outside the company from a cooling central with a dimensioned effect of at least 1 MW.

District cooling

Cold water that is transported through isolated pipes to consumers. District cooling can be produced by using for example heat pumps, free cooling or absorption cooling.

Gross production of district heating

This includes production of district heating, steam and electricity production in district heating- and combined heat and power plants. Earlier this concept also included "heat not distributed", which is heat from refuse incineration plants that is cooled and not utilized as district heating. This is now deducted from the gross production concept for all years back to 1983. (See "Comparability over time and place")

Consumer groups: The consumer groups are based on Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007).

Households

Also includes housing cooperatives

Manufacturing

• 05, 07, 08, 09.9 Mining and quarrying
• 10-33 Manufacturing

Construction

• 41-43 Construction

Services

• 45-47 Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles and motorcycles
• 49-53 Transportation and storage
• 55-56 Accommodation and food service activities
• 58-63 Information and communication
• 64-66 Financial and insurance activities
• 68 Real estate activities
• 69-75 Professional, scientific and technical activities
• 77-82 Administrative and support service activities
• 84 Public administration and defence; compulsory social security
• 85 Education
• 86-88 Human health and social work activities
• 90-93 Arts, entertainment and recreation
• 94-96 Other service activities
• 97 Activities of household as employers; undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own account
• 99 Activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies

Other

• 01-03 Agriculture, forestry and fishing
• 06, 09.1 Extraction of crude petroleum and natural gas
• 35 Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply
• 36-39 Water supply; sewerage, waste management and remediation activities

The consumption categories is separated for households, manufacturing and quarrying, construction, services and other, according to Norwegian Standard Industrial Classification (SIC2007).

The categories for energy products follows Statistical classification and codelists.

Name: District heating and district cooling
Topic: Energy and manufacturing

Division for Energy, Environmental and Transport Statistics

National level.

Annual

Statistics Norway reports data from the statistics to the following organisations;

• Eurostat (EU's statistics office)
• International Energy Agency (IEA).

A copy of the reports is sent to the United Nations.

Collected and revised data are stored securely by Statistics Norway in compliance with applicable legislation on data processing.

Statistics Norway can grant access to the source data (de-identified or anonymised microdata) on which the statistics are based, for researchers and public authorities for the purposes of preparing statistical results and analyses. Access can be granted upon application and subject to conditions. Refer to the details about this at Access to data from Statistics Norway.

The statistics were started in 1983. District heating was very little widespread in Norway before this time. The purpose is to elaborate statistics for the district heating activity in Norway. The basis for the statistics is data from plants that produce district heating with the purpose to distribute / sell it to third part (other users than the enterprise). Statistics for production, consumption by sector, fuel consumption in the production, and technical and economic main figures as income and investments are prepared and published.

The statistic are used by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, and by persons working with energy related themes. The data are also reported to and used by International Organisations as Eurostat and OECD/ IEA (International Energy Agency). The statistics are used internal in Statistics Norway (SN) in Division for National Accounts. The economic figures are also used in Division for business cycle statistics and Division for structural business statistics. The quantity figures, in GWh etc., are used in energy statistics in SN, such as in the Energy accounts and the Energy balance for Norway, and in statistics for emissions to air.

No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 8 am. Prior to this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given in the Statistics Release Calender.

This is one of the most important principles in Statistics Norway for ensuring the equal treatment of users.

The Division for National Accounts uses the value figures from the district heating statistics in their calculations. The physical quantity figures are used in the Energy balance and the Energy account and in emissions calculations for Norway.

The net production figures in the district heating statistics are partly comparable with data that "Norsk Fjernvarme" (Norwegian District heating association" collect and publish on the website Fjernkontrollen . One difference is that Statistics Norway include several district heating plants in the statistics. In addition, it is used somewhat different concepts and categories for the energy products. This is further described on the "Fjernkontrollen"-website.

Statistics Norway collects district heating data on behalf of Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). This is done pursuant to Act no. 50 of 29 June 1990: Act relating to the generation, conversion, transmission, trading, distribution and use of energy etc. (The Energy Act)

Another relevant law is the The Energy Act Regulations; REG. no. 959 of 7 December 1990: Regulations concerning the generation, conversion, transmission, trading, distribution and use of energy etc.

At the same time, Statistics Norway is developing, producing and disseminating the statistics pursuant to Act no. 32 of 21 June 2019 relating to official statistics and Statistics Norway (the Statistics Act).

The issue is included in the regulation for structure statistics (No 58/97) and energy statistics (1099/2008)

The population is all the district heating and cooling plants in Norway that produce district heating and/or cooling with the purpose to distribute / sell it to other customers outside the company.

Installations below 1 MW, such as temporary installations, should be included in the reporting if the total effect for all installations combined in the company is above 1 MW, and / or they are included in the company's overall overview of district heating.

The collection unit is essentially an enterprise, which means that the enterprise reports gathered for all district heating plants in the enterprise.

Industrial enterprises that produce heat for their own use only, are not included.

The sources are data that are collected from the district heating plants in Norway, by a form that they fill out in Altinn.

All district-heating plants should be included. New units are identified, among other things, by using VoF. VoF is Statistics Norway's central register of all legal entities and businesses in the private and public sector in Norway.

Statistics Norway collects district heating data on behalf of Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE). Questionnaires are sent in electronically through Altinn.

Editing is defined here as checking, examining and amending data. It is automatic consistency controls in the Altinn form, so the respondents easier can detect errors and correct them. It is also automatic controls on the data received. The reported figures are compared with data that are reported for the previous years, to see if some data might have been forgotten or if there are large discrepancies to the figures that have been reported before. Consistency of data reported in the different columns in the questionnaire is also checked automatic. The plants are contacted if there are inconsistencies in the reported figures, or if figures are missing or are very different from data reported in previous years. The investment figures are compared with data from the enterprises' annual reports, which is available in the autumn. Due to that, investment figures are published later than the other figures; in September / October.

The edited data are presented gathered for all plants, and with weighted average prices. The statistics are presented without any seasonal adjustments.

Not relevant

Employees of Statistics Norway have a duty of confidentiality.

Statistics Norway does not publish figures if there is a risk of the respondent’s contribution being identified. This means that, as a general rule, figures are not published if fewer than three units form the basis of a cell in a table or if the contribution of one or two respondents constitutes a very large part of the cell total.

Statistics Norway can make exceptions to the general rule if deemed necessary to meet the requirements of the EEA agreement, if the respondent is a public authority, if the respondent has consented to this, or when the information disclosed is openly accessible to the public.

More information can be found on Statistics Norway’s website under Methods in official statistics, in the ‘Confidentiality’ section.

Comparable figures are available from 1983. The information is less detailed for the years before 1986.

There is an increase in the quantity of waste used in district heating plants from 2009 to 2010, which is partly due to the fact that the factor for energy content in waste has been changed. Up to 2009, the factor 10.5 Terajoule per 1000 tonnes of waste has been used, while it was changed to 11.5 from 2010. This does not affect the amount of waste in tonnes, but it affects the amount of waste measured in energy units such as Terajoule and GWh. The change is based on results in a report issued by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, "Renewable share in waste in Norwegian refuse incineration plants" 2011, by Jarle Marthinsen, Mepex Consult AS

In the publishing of district heating statistics in 2017, the term "gross production of district heating" was changed for all years backwards in time. Previously, "heat not distributed", was included, while this is now taken out of the gross concept. Heat not distributed is mainly heat from waste incineration plants that, for various reasons, is cooled without being utilized as district heating. An example is when waste is burnt during the summer, while there is less need for heating. The reason for why this now is taken out of the gross concept, is that it is not utilized for energy purposes. Another change made in 2017 is that the corresponding waste incinerated without the heat being utilized, is deducted from the fuel consumption in district heating plants in the statistics back to 1983. Since this is heat that potentially could be utilized, we have chosen to show this as additional information as "memo" entries in the tables. The calculation of the waste consumption to be extracted is based on the amount of “heat not distributed” and the ratio of waste consumption to total heat production in waste incineration plants for the individual district heating plants.

In 2022, the combined heat and power plant on Svalbard was included in the total figures, for all years back in time to 1996. Earlier, figures for Svalbard has only been mentioned in footnotes in the tables.

Failure in coverage

All relevant district heating plants should be included in the statistic. However failures in coverage might occur if plants that are relevant for the statistics, not are identified and included.

However, all plants that are included in the sample, usually respond to the questionnaire.

Measurement and processing errors

Some of the district heating do not have complete information about all the figures that are required in the questionnaire, as for instance the consumption of fuels, production, the losses in the distribution lines and the deliveries to different consumer groups. Calculations and judgement have to be used in these cases, principally by the reporting plant.

A revision is a planned change to figures that have already been published, for example when releasing final figures as a follow-up to published preliminary figures. See also Statistcs Norway's principles for revisions.

If no large errors are detected after the release of the statistics, the figures are not revised.