In 2011, the City of Leuven signed the Covenant of Mayors and expressed its ambition to become climate neutral as a city by 2030. In 2012, a partnership was established with a whole set of Leuven actors from government, research, business and civil society. The aim is to translate this ambition into a widely supported action plan for Leuven Climate Neutral. Within cities that have taken up the climate neutral challenge, there is a lot of interest in heat networks. After all, imposing ever stricter standards for new buildings and renovations that are gradually moving towards passive construction is not enough. The renovation rate of the patrimony is too low for this: most of the buildings of 2030 are already built today. In some Flemish cities/regions, feasibility studies are underway to build new heat networks, fuelled by cogeneration, renewable energy or residual heat, or to revive old ones.

However, conditions for heat networks in Leuven are not optimal. The city does not appear to have many energy-intensive industries or power plants where residual heat is available. There are also no experiences with older heat networks or smaller networks that can be brought into a new network. It is therefore necessary to examine under which conditions and in which zones it is still interesting for Leuven to opt for heat networks.In this context, the study started with an inventory of substantial sources of (residual) heat, both existing and future. In addition to residual heat sources, the potential for the installation of new power plants that could feed a heat network, for example by means of cogeneration, was also examined. On the other hand, (residential) neighborhoods and possible large-scale individual consumers were mapped, also existing and future. This used a combination of measured consumption as well as estimates based on floor area.

The resulting heat potential map was then used to select clusters that combine a sufficiently large heat demand for heating with proximity to potential heat sources. These clusters were then qualitatively or semi-quantitatively assessed against a number of feasibility criteria for the construction of heat networks, both technical, financial and organizational in nature.Finally, for the most realistic and promising projects, a "roadmap" to concrete implementation was developed.