Increasingly more waste used as energy

The net production of district heating in 1997 amounted to 1,401 GWh in 1997, slightly down from the year before. Of that amount, 63 per cent was produced by the incineration of waste and exploiting waste heat from industry. Consumption of district heating totalled 1,282 GWh, one percent less than the previous year. The decline may be attributable to last year being warmer than the year before.

District heating is produced mainly from burning waste. Also utilized is waste heat from industry, wood chippings, gas from refuse dumps, electricity and oil. Gross production amounted to 1,797 GWh last year, up two per cent from the previous year.

Some of the heat produced in district heating and waste-heat plants is cooled in the air or is lost. Last year, a relatively high percentage of refuse and waste heat was used in the production, resulting in a slight decline in net heat production.

Fifteen GWh of remote cooling was also produced last year. Remote cooling is a by-product of district heating by which cold water is transported through pipes for cooling. This is produced in heat-pump plants powered by electricity and seawater, among other things. Remote cooling is still not particularly widespread in Norway, but is utilized to some extent in Sweden.

New statistics
District heating statistics, 1997.
The statistics are published annually in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics and Official Statistics of Norway (NOS) Energy Statistics. For more information, contact ann.christin.boeng@ssb.no, tel. +47 21 09 47 43.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 35, 1998