Germany brings forward deadline for municipalities to publish heating decarbonisation plans

German municipalities should according to the foreign news website Clean Energy Wire submit their plans for decarbonising heating six months earlier than originally planned. Cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants should now do so by mid-2026, while smaller cities and municipalities have until mid-2028.

Plans by individual cities and municipalities for decarbonising heating should give local households an indication of whether they will be connected to district heating networks or will have to rely on another type of climate-friendly heating source in the future.

According to the foreign news website Clean Energy Wire, however, there is a risk that individual municipalities will delay publishing these plans for as long as possible, since the plans will probably require local residents to switch to a different heating method, which involves an upfront investment and could therefore be difficult to justify to voters.

The draft law on municipal heating, which was sent to Germany's federal states last week, stipulates that within district heating networks, the network operator—not individual households—will be responsible for decarbonisation.