<p>Empirical analysis of the transformation efforts of district heating suppliers</p><p>The formation of a new government in 2021 brought about an epochal change in Germany. Whereas the national energy transition had previously been primarily focussed on electricity, the heat transformation now took centre stage - and with it the transformation of district heating. While the KWKG used to primarily incentivise investments in gas-based district heating technologies in the district heating transformation, a new funding logic emerged with the BEW. From now on, the aim of the BEW is to reduce the use of gas-based district heating in line with the relevant economically efficient energy transformation scenarios and to incentivise a ramp-up of non-combustion technologies. The problem is that there is currently no data on whether these changed framework conditions are sufficient.</p><p>In order to eliminate this lack of knowledge, a comprehensive volume-based survey of district heating suppliers on their transformation plans up to 2045 was carried out for the first time together with the AGFW district heating association. The result: district heating is on the right track in its planning. However, further optimisation is required, as gas-based use in the target year 2045 is still too high and the use of heat pumps is too low. A geographical categorisation of the results shows that this could be due to the high level of investment in non-combustion technologies. Consequently, regulation of gas-based use analogous to the existing regulation of biomass by 2045, together with better capitalisation of BEW, has potential for optimisation</p>