Heat planning in Germany: municipalities on the way to climate neutrality!

Heat planning in Germany: municipalities on the way to climate neutrality!

Berlin, Deutschland - On June 11, 2025, the final event of the nationwide stakeholder dialogue for heat planning took place in Berlin. This dialogue, which has existed since the middle of last year as an exchange platform between the federal, state, municipalities, associations, companies and science, aims to support and promote municipal heat planning. Verena Hubertz, the Federal Minister of Housing, Urban Development and Building, as well as Frank Günter Wetzel, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, emphasized the central role of the municipalities in this process to ensure greenhouse gas supply in Germany by 2045. This is an essential measure, since over 50% of the national energy consumption of heat supply can be attributed to one of the main drivers of CO₂ emissions.

The stakeholder dialog has created recommendations to support the municipalities in heat planning, which focus primarily on the simplification of data provision and the unbureaucratic use of heat planning data. In order to relieve small municipalities, specific suggestions for help and relief were developed. In addition, there was a discussion about the interfaces between heat planning, urban development and energy infrastructure planning, which emphasizes the need to implement neighborhood approaches as a significant method in heat planning.

financial support and legal framework

The federal government has provided a total of 500 million euros for the creation of the heat plans to support the municipalities in implementing their plans. The heat planning law, which is binding for all federal states from January 1, 2024, forces these heat plans to create this up to fixed appointments. These deadlines vary: municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants have to be completed by June 30, 2026, all others until June 30, 2028. These regulations should enable coordinated local development of the energy infrastructure and drive the switch to climate -neutral heat supply.

Central responsibility for heat planning lies in the countries that can delegate these tasks to municipalities or local legal entities. Equipment is possible and can be handled within the framework of the law. Over 42% of German municipalities are already actively involved in their heat planning, but only 2% have completed their plans.

progress of municipal heat planning

According to current analyzes, 164 municipalities work on manufacturing heat plans in Baden-Württemberg, while North Rhine-Westphalia has 396 cities, 30 of which have to complete their plans by mid-2026. In Rhineland-Palatinate, which has the highest number with 2,301 municipalities, many municipalities are affected with low population density. Nevertheless, there is progress, as in the case of Rostock, where the first completed heat plan in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania covers 13% of the national population.

The challenge is also that five federal states have issued their own heat planning laws that set sometimes different deadlines. In Thuringia, for example, 13% of the municipalities are active, but cover more than half of the population there. To support smaller municipalities, cooperations have been formed in the form of convoys that promote the exchange of experiences and the development of solutions.