Budapest District Heating Service Ltd.

Budapest District Heating Service Ltd. is 100 percent owned by the Council of Budapest Municipality, and provides heat under public service contract in the capital.

• Hungary’s largest heat supplier

• It has 8 separate heating zones and 4 block heating systems, that provides district heating to 280.000 household (30 percent of the entire population of Budapest) and to 700.000 additional consumers.

Advantages of district heating compared to other heating methods:

• Comfortable: highest comfort level and 99.8 percent availability

• Safe: no fire, no risk of explosion, no carbon-monoxide poisoning

• Environmentally friendly: saving fuel, reducing greenhouse gas emission, using waste and renewable energy

• Competitive: the cost of district heating per square meter in Budapest is below the cost of gas heating

“It provides heat in safe, environmentally conscious manner from any source of energy, but especially and increasingly using energy recovery from municipal waste and using renewable energy.”

For more details visiting: fotav.hu

Actions taken as part of the HungAIRy LIFE integrated project

“Chimney free city centre“ development plan:

The aim of the plan is to promote the environmental friendly district heating to heat the city centre of Budapest that emits less pollutants. The first step of the “Chimney free city centre“ program will be installing two pairs of power lines on the ElisabethBridge, that connects potential users living in the city centre to the Kelenföld Power Plan. Next step will be building strategic power line to the East Railway Station and to the district heating connecting point at the City Hall.

Concurrently with the construction of the aforementioned connecting line, the Budapest District Heating Service (FŐTÁV Zrt.) will draw up, in collaboration with the local leaders concerned the “Chimney free city centre“ district heating development plan. In the plan the areas of improvement, investment costs of certain intervention units, environmental gains (reduction of emission of pollutants) and the growth rate of energy efficiency will be identified. The plan will solve the problem of solid fuel based heating systems, which are the major source of dust and greenhouse gas emission.

“Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden” (BZBG) development plan:

Right now the company provides geothermal heat to 26 buildings located within the BZBG area (with the excess heat of Budapest Spas and Geothermal Waters Ltd., Budapest Gyógyfürdői és Hévizei Zrt. In Hungarian). The CO2 and dust emission of other, not yet connected buildings in the BZBG area will be considering their connection to the district heating network. In this way, the energy transformed by cooling the thermal water in the spas of Budapest, retrieved by Budapest Spas and Geothermal Water Ltd., to a safe, serviceable temperature, will not be wasted, but will be (re)used as a heat energy by the new customers of the system.

Promoting green energy with smart meters and mobile applications:

With smart metering the individual consumption of households possessing unique heat centre, can be measured for the participant families in a traceable way. The aim of the planned mobile application is to help consumers learn about their own consumption habits using a mobile application and by collecting data centrally. With this method, the consumers will be able to track he amount of heat they used and the amount of CO2 they saved as a result of their new, environmentally friendly consumption patterns. International examples show that 95 percent of consumers have changed their consumption habits in the right direction.

Information Days of “Chimney Free City Centre” and BZBG:

Attracting new consumers into the program, will contribute to the further spread of eco-friendly district heating in the central parts of the capital. To achieve this goal, three information days are required to be organised annually. The events will be held in the City Hall of Budapest, as this building will be the first building in the city centre using district heating. Active communication with the public will ensure the continuous monitoring of direction of the development goals and its conformance to current consumer needs. In addition, the results will be displayed on an interactive screen in front of the town hall to raise public awareness. 

Further activities in which Budapest District Heating Service Ltd.is participated:

• employing eco-manager

• participating in awareness raising