District heating and ambivalent energy transition paths in urban and rural contexts

Most institutions and industrial actors believe that district heating infrastructure can play a key role in accelerating the transition to low-carbon energy systems. In this article we test this belief in Italy, starting from a census of all existing plants, subdivided by sources of supply and business organization models. We isolate two types of district heating (urban and rural) and find that they are different with respect to their approaches to energy transition. In rural areas, networks constitute systems that can empower the local techno-institutional complex to achieve a technological leap. Set in a pre-existing social network, district heating reinforces a sense of community and facilitates the involvement of various local players in a collective project. In the case of biomass, we are faced with local systems that have almost completed the transition with regard to the production of thermal and sometimes electric energy. In urban areas, on the other hand, networks represent functional devices for the stabilization of the techno-institutional complex. They allow cities to work on the circularity of some economies, generating added value from the same factors of production. The discrepancy between urban and rural contexts thus highlights the need to consider the ambivalence of district heating technology