As a municipal company, Stadtwerke Bielefeld and its subsidiary Bielefelder Netz GmbH supply customers reliably and safely with electricity, gas, water and district heating. Through five subsidiaries, Stadtwerke Bielefeld supplies the people of Bielefeld and local businesses with a wide range of products and services for urban mobility and infrastructure.

As part of municipal heating planning, Bielefelder Netz has evaluated the transformation of space heating supplies using gas and oil to sustainable solutions such as heat pumps (HP) or thermal networks. The option of a decentralized hydrogen supply should also be considered in the transformation planning.

For a defined urban district in Bielefeld, we have compared the heat supply solutions of local heating and hydrogen. The project was divided into two work packages. First, we analysed the main cost drivers for the future H2 supply (national production and imports). In the second step, the heating costs of H2 and local heating have been compared. This cost analysis of the respective heat supply option was carried out from the perspective of the end customer.

E-Bridge has calculated the heat supply costs with hydrogen with a time horizon up to 2035 on the basis of cost drivers of H2 production or H2 imports and the conversion costs of the gas pipelines.

In a direct comparison with the local heating supply, taking into account the central heat source, the cost components were prepared and compared. The results showed the specific costs and the annual costs of the two heat supply options from the customer’s perspective.