Heat transition in rural areas: Using the citizen energy fund to create a municipal heating network

How do I find a heating network operator? à For municipalities that do not have their own municipal utilities, the question is which operator models are available (from “searching for external third parties” or citizen energy cooperatives to “municipality becomes owner but puts construction and 20-year operation out to tender” to the establishment of its own municipal utility) and how the procedure for tendering heating networks can be designed in technical terms for the respective models (procedure, selection criteria, etc.). Here, too, we report from our practical experience in supporting various municipalities.