District heating succeeds or fails locally – not in spreadsheets or technical plans. Every community has its own social landscape – its trusted voices, habits, and unwritten rules. Before drawing technical plans, utilities and municipalities must understand the landscape. Who do people trust? What do they value – independence, community, or simplicity? Find the local gatekeepers, listen to them, and build with them. District heating isn’t sold; it’s anchored in local trust.
By Marie Aarup, Climate Advisor at Rudersdal Municipality
Published in Hot Cool, edition no. 8/2025 | ISSN 0904 9681 |
Introduction
This article views district heating from a nontechnical perspective. It views district heating through the eyes of the consumers. How they interact with different energy systems, utilize and understand them, and how energy systems facilitate social norms and behaviors, and vice versa.
A key aspect of promoting district heating as a reliable alternative to natural gas in Denmark and Europe involves understanding and collaborating closely with local communities. Understand what motivates them and how they experience the barriers. Not just from a technical or economic perspective, but in a much wider context. In short, this article provides insight into why some consumers may say ‘yes’ and others ‘no’.
User behavior in a household perspective – motivation and barriers
Invisibility as a barrier
Most consumers are only aware of their energy system when it ‘breaks down’. For example, when the boiler stops working at the beginning of December. At that point, consumers become aware of the system, even though it plays a crucial role in everyday life.
With the energy crisis in 2022 as a consequence of the war in Ukraine, and sky-high prices on natural gas, we suddenly as a society became aware of our energy system and consumption. The system broke down it became visible. Consumers in Denmark were for the first time able to move their energy consumption to cheaper hours of the day, and many public institutions reduced room temperature.
But now, at least in a Danish context, our energy infrastructures have again become more or less invisible. Because they work as expected. We heat our houses again at a more reasonable price.
Energy, being invisible, is a general barrier for district heating, because the decision-making has to be taken at a time when most consumers do not pay much attention to their energy system. A close collaboration and dialogue with the local community might compensate for this barrier.
The passive consumer as a barrier
In a Danish context, anthropologically founded studies show that energy consumers are passive and non-interested in their energy consumption. This goes particularly for consumers of district heating. But why is that? It involves aspects related to reliability, access, automation, and interaction.
From interviews, consumers have said:
“I think we use the energy we need…we don’t save, and if we feel like turning up the temperature, we do it” (quote from Danish energy consumer)
“If it is warm enough, we turn it off, and if it gets cold, we turn it on again” (quote from a consumer of district heating in a small village)
“It is the weather that affects our energy consumption. This is difficult to change” (quote from a consumer of district heating in the city)
What the quotes reveal is that consumers tend to give little thought to their energy consumption or behavior. They just use what they need or what the weather forces them to use.
Even though all the quotes are from interviews conducted before the energy crisis, the general picture has not changed. Because the passive consumer is being facilitated by the heating system itself. A lot of the material components are not visible to the eye; they are either built into the wall, ground, or automated. The consumer does not interact with it on a regular basis. E.g., floor heating or intelligent thermostats. In a household context, consumers can heat their homes with minimal effort.
This might be a good thing. It supports high comfort, perhaps it is more energy efficient and thus cheaper, but it makes the energy consumer passive and the energy system even more invisible.
Another example of the extent of the passive consumer is the following quotes from energy users. These users are actually shareholders of a local district heating company. The question asked was what it meant to be a shareholder. Their responses support the passive approach to energy and district heating in general.
“Nothing really, I would say. It is for sure not something that I think about.”
“Nothing more than that, that is how it is to a member of the district heating company, so you automatically become a shareholder, that is how it is.”
Passive users are a barrier to promoting district heating. Supported by the invisibility as described above. This makes it even more difficult for consumers to be aware of their energy supply and thus make informed decisions. But it might also be a driver, at least for the consumer type, who wants it to be easy and doesn’t want to be bothered by it in everyday life. Consumers who enjoy letting the experts help them.
But different heat sources and systems affect the user behavior differently. Not all consumers are the same; what one consumer views as a motivation will be a barrier for another.
“Be your own stoker” as a barrier
Being your own stoker offers another anthropological insight that facilitates consumers’ decision-making. To be your own stoker is a question of autonomy, being able to do things yourself, having the ability and know-how to handle your own energy system. For some consumers, this is key; for other consumers, it is terrifying.
To be your own stoker speaks to the more active consumer, a consumer who one day fuels the wooden boiler with wood pellets and on another day fuels it with leftover grains.
“We are a bit more independent (with a biomass boiler). We have more options, e.g., with the wood we produce ourselves or the grain we have left. There is, of course, a bit more work in it, but…” (quote from an energy consumer)
Depending on what is at hand and what may be the cheapest. This power to act and use available local materials is important for some energy consumers. Depending on how a district heating system is promoted and experienced, this may also be the reason why some say ‘no’ or would be able to say ‘yes’.
More active users are generally more familiar with other heating systems than with district heating. They might have had different individual heating technologies in their household. This consumer type also has access to materials through the local network. Here is another example:
“I know a guy on the board in the local water company; he works over there in the factory. He asked if I was interested in some wood, and I was. So, I went over there and picked up 6 trailers’ worth of wood. It just cost me a bit of gasoline” (quote from a Danish energy consumer)
For many local communities, the energy systems in individual households remain interconnected through community relationships. They use local materials, local know-how, and may also share knowledge and even trust local know-how more than experts from ‘the outside’.
Being your own stoker poses a barrier to the district heating system, as described above. However, depending on the community’s social landscape, it may also serve as a driver for a local district heating system. This depends on how district heating is being narrated into the local community, their values, know-how, and local materials.
Social landscape as a tool
For developers and energy planners to succeed in establishing district heating in areas with primarily individual energy supplies, mobilizing the local community is crucial. There will be no district heating system if the majority of the community says ‘no’. This we know.
From a social science perspective and a practice-oriented anthropological approach, this is where many developers fail. Not because they are not competent. But because energy projects, like many others, still tend to be developed in a linear silo process. Once the legal, technical, and financial aspects are in place, promoting district heating becomes only a sales pitch at the end of the project phase.
Planners and developers must map a community’s social landscape while planning the project. This means they have to research the relationships, the bonds that tie people together, social norms and cultural practices, and the roles of different local institutions.
Some of the former quotes described a social landscape in which people share and redistribute local materials and in which ‘doing it yourself’ is highly valued. In other communities, other values might be at stake.
The social landscape reveals how individuals, households, and groups connect and interact, as well as how they relate to and feel connected to their local environment. This gives you an idea about what values glue the community together, which practices and behaviors are accepted, and which might be less common in the area.
The social landscape provides insight into how to frame the district heating project and offers a platform for developing a co-creation approach in project planning.
Gatekeepers as a tool
Secondly, in anthropology, when conducting field research, a key method is to identify local ‘gatekeepers’. This can be individuals, groups, or organizations. The gatekeeper controls the ‘gate’ to the community and can give or deny you access. In district heating planning, a gatekeeper can be the local church, a sports facility, a local store owner, or a housing company. It can be a specific person, a group, or an activity that holds a specific position in the community.
Finding your gatekeepers and inviting them into the design of and dialogue about a district heating system in the community is another very important step in mobilizing the community. The gatekeepers can identify other important entities in the community and help you figure out how to design the remaining process.
A gatekeeper does not have to be pro-district heating. He/she can also be against it or neutral, but still hold a position in the local community, be a voice in shaping people’s minds, and know all the formal and informal channels of communication.
Conclusion
District heating projects succeed when they are rooted in local realities. Technical and economic arguments alone are insufficient to create acceptance. Each community has its own social landscape – networks, norms, and informal structures that shape how people make decisions. Understanding these dynamics and identifying local gatekeepers is essential for meaningful engagement.
By integrating social mapping and co-creation into the early planning stages, utilities and municipalities can design solutions that align with local values and practices. In short, district heating acceptance is not achieved through persuasion, but through participation.
For further information, please contact: Marie Aarup, maaar@rudersdal.dk