District Heating in a Liberalized Energy Market: A New Order? Planning and Development in the Stockholm Region, 1978-2012

University dissertation from Linköping : Linköping University Electronic Press

Author: Dick Magnusson; Linköpings Universitet.; Linköpings Universitet.; [2013]

Keywords: SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP; SOCIAL SCIENCES; District heating; energy; Stockholm region; municipal planning; regional planning; large technical systems; splintering urbanism; planning doctrines; Fjärrvärme; energi; Stockholmsregionen; kommunal planering; regional planering; Large Technical Systems; Splintering Urbanism; Planeringsdoktriner;

Abstract: This dissertation analyses how district heating systems in the Stockholm region have evolved and developed during the period 1978-2012. The thesis comprises four papers analyzing how district heating has been handled in municipal and regional planning. The examination explores how actors have worked together to create regional, interconnected district heating systems with economic, technological and environmental benefits. An investigation is undertaken on the effects of liberalization (and the subsequent commercialization of the district heating market) on the planning and cooperation of these systems. The impact on the present and future district heating market is also discussed.The dissertation shows that energy companies cooperated on a regional level to create interconnected regional systems. Through openness, the capacity to make high-level decisions and municipal legitimacy, the regional strategies could be implemented at the municipal level. This can be considered a form of regional planning from below that developed through the initiative of the municipalities. The regional energy planning authority Stoseb could therefore succeed where other regional planning authorities in the Stockholm region have previous failed, to gather and unite the municipalities into a regional force.This cooperation changed around the time of the liberalization of the energy market in 1996, which led to sales of several municipal energy companies and a subsequent concentration of ownership in the region. The organizational distance between energy companies and municipalities has increased and affected the communication between them. Regional cooperation could not be maintained and this has meant that opportunities and tools to implement energy strategies today are weaker than earlier. This is a case of ‘regional splintering’. The liberalization of the energy market thus had a major impact on the district heating sector.

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