As part of the KliWinBa project, our workshop "How can the heating transition succeed in conurbations?" took place on Thursday, 9 October 2025 in the Glass Pavilion on Campus Essen! The aim of the workshop was to discuss the challenges and opportunities of the heating transition in urban centres and to think together about solutions and strategies for a sustainable and efficient heating transition.

Around 50 stakeholders from science and practice gathered at the University of Duisburg-Essen to take part in the workshop. Prof Christoph Weber welcomed the participants and gave a brief insight into current challenges on the path to climate neutrality by 2045, followed by presentations on strategies and measures for the heating transition in existing buildings (Dr Pawel Naliwajko, Vonovia SE) and on municipal heating planning in Duisburg (Katja Kleegräfe and Stefan Foraita, DVV mbH). Both presentations left plenty of room for questions, resulting in lively discussions between the speakers and the participants.

After a short coffee break, Daniel Brunsch and Tobias Ader (UDE) presented the first project results and the online tool developed in the project for calculating the economic efficiency of heating systems. This presentation and, above all, the tool were also well received, leading to a lively discussion afterwards! The comments and questions continued into the lunch break.

The afternoon continued with two presentations on legal obstacles (Prof. Dr Christian Pielow) and current experiences from the design of GEG-compliant heat generators for existing buildings (Thorsten Coß, AVU Serviceplus GmbH). In a subsequent breakout session, the participants discussed practical, regulatory and economic challenges. In particular, topics were addressed that had not yet found a place in the previous presentations - such as the sometimes overly complex and misguided funding structures, the lack of cooperation between stakeholders (e.g. in the case of infrastructure measures, when roads are opened anyway, district heating, fibre optic or drinking water pipes could be laid or renewed at the same time) and the high electricity prices in international comparison, which make the expansion of heat pumps in Germany more difficult.

Finally, the workshop participants enjoyed a presentation by Lars Grothe (BDEW) on the topic of "From heat planning to financing to implementation". Using the German District Heating Fund announced by KfW with a planned volume of around 10 billion euros (as of the end of June) as an example, he showed how funding instruments could be used in a more targeted manner in the future to facilitate investments in the heating transition. The event was concluded with a summary by Prof. Dr Christoph Weber.

We would like to thank all participants for their active involvement in our workshop!

You can find a few impressions of the day here.