District heating makes sense from a purely technical point of view, however it’s important to consider social incentives too.
Such systems were everywhere in former Soviet union, also in China.
They can work great when they are new, but underground pipes eventually develop leaks, need digging up and fixing, and this got neglected during the soviet stagnation era (from Brezhnev onwards). Consequently, most of the hot water disappeared underground (I heard this from Ukrainian engineering students), steam rose from the ground in city streets (I saw this) - often damaging nearby structures, and even in mid Siberia there were lines without snow, above the pipes (also saw this). The subsequent inefficiency was a major factor behind the flop of the post-soviet economies in the 1990s (Ukraine had highest emissions / GDP in the world at that time). Unfortunately fixing leaky old pipes is not sexy for political leaders who prefer big new power projects.
So - it can be done, but depends on the reliability of the social system.
Maintenance of wires is so much easier than maintenance of pipes. Assuming the electricity is not from a fossil fuel source, distribution of electric heat will almost always be the superior choice (in my humble opinion).
But in many jurisdictions, green electricity is more expensive than fossil fuels. So now you’re looking at pipes to houses to deliver heat, or pipes to house to deliver gas – and the optimization problem becomes less obvious.
In a hypothetical Mars colony where you can clean-sheet design heating and cooling, it’ll almost certainly not be piped centralized heat. And based on the Soviet experience, it probably was never a good choice :/
District heating makes sense from a purely technical point of view, however it’s important to consider social incentives too. Such systems were everywhere in former Soviet union, also in China. They can work great when they are new, but underground pipes eventually develop leaks, need digging up and fixing, and this got neglected during the soviet stagnation era (from Brezhnev onwards). Consequently, most of the hot water disappeared underground (I heard this from Ukrainian engineering students), steam rose from the ground in city streets (I saw this) - often damaging nearby structures, and even in mid Siberia there were lines without snow, above the pipes (also saw this). The subsequent inefficiency was a major factor behind the flop of the post-soviet economies in the 1990s (Ukraine had highest emissions / GDP in the world at that time). Unfortunately fixing leaky old pipes is not sexy for political leaders who prefer big new power projects.
So - it can be done, but depends on the reliability of the social system.
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Maintenance of wires is so much easier than maintenance of pipes. Assuming the electricity is not from a fossil fuel source, distribution of electric heat will almost always be the superior choice (in my humble opinion).
But in many jurisdictions, green electricity is more expensive than fossil fuels. So now you’re looking at pipes to houses to deliver heat, or pipes to house to deliver gas – and the optimization problem becomes less obvious.
In a hypothetical Mars colony where you can clean-sheet design heating and cooling, it’ll almost certainly not be piped centralized heat. And based on the Soviet experience, it probably was never a good choice :/