An assessment of district heating research in China

• One third of all international journal articles on district heating during 2010–2012 were written by Chinese scientists.
• These articles were mapped with nine different aspects and two most focused research areas were heat supply diversity and system functioning.
• Both focused research areas are highly implemented in Sweden, giving possible collaboration between Chinese and Swedish researchers.
• Information about heat supplies, heat distribution networks with substations, and heat demands were also compared between China and Sweden.
• High proportion of 66% of renewables and heat recovery in Sweden, but only 0.3% in China.

The recent growth of the Chinese district heating sector has been very high. No other country in the world can show the same growth rate during the last decades. The heated building area increased six times between 1995 and 2008. China has also enjoyed strong growth of scientific articles and papers about district heating in recent years. One third of all international scientific journal articles and conference papers about district heating came from Chinese scientists during 2010–2012, while Swedish scientists accounted for one quarter according to the Scopus scientific search engine. It is important to identify the Chinese district heating research to judge the potential for future collaborative research on district heating systems between Sweden/Europe and China. The 205 international publications on district heating by Chinese scientists published until 2013 have been mapped and summarised with respect to demand, supply, technology, market and environment. More diversified heat supply with renewable source was grasping the Chinese interest, since many new systems have been established, having more degrees of freedom when choosing various heat supply and technology options. The Chinese district heating systems were compared with sustainable district heating solutions in Sweden. Both countries would benefit from future research cooperation.