Summary:
A transition in the heating sector – particularly for buildings – is essential to address climate change. Heating solutions will need to vary significantly depending on local conditions such as climate, building standards, and the availability of waste heat. Emerging generations of low-temperature district heating systems enable the integration of new waste heat sources, but identifying feasible, initial design heating concepts remains a time-consuming task. In this paper, we present UrbanHeatOpt, a user-friendly, modular software framework that streamlines the entire process — from generating high-resolution heat demand data to identifying potential community heating concepts. The tool supports both early-stage planning in municipalities and more in-depth analyses to inform policy-making in the heating sector.
Spanish layman's summary:
UrbanHeatOpt es una nueva herramienta que facilita la planificación de sistemas de calefacción de redes de calor. Genera datos precisos de demanda de calor de viviendas y propone redes optimizadas para distribuir el calor, ayudando a las ciudades a crear sistemas sostenibles.
English layman's summary:
UrbanHeatOpt is a new tool that simplifies planning district heating systems. It generates detailed heat demand building data and calculates optimal district heating networks, helping cities design sustainable heating systems.
Keywords: Energy system modeling; District heating; Time series generation; Urban energy planning; Waste heat utilization
JCR-JIF Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 1,900 - Q3 (2025)
DOI reference:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2025.102393
Published on paper: December 2025.
Published on-line: October 2025.
Citation:
S. Malacek, D. Cardona-Vásquez, J. Portela, I. Abbate, Y. Werner, S. Wogrin, "UrbanHeatOpt: A software framework for supporting municipal heat transition planning", SoftwareX, Vol. 32, pp. 102393, December 2025. [Online: October 2025] doi: 10.1016/j.softx.2025.102393
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