Does district heating tariff motivate energy efficiency improvement?

The district heating (DH) tariffs depend on many factors, including fuel prices, operational parameters, taxes, investments, and other criteria. The range of tariff values is substantial: sometimes, the difference is more than two times. An analysis of the DH tariffs has been implemented to motivate DH enterprises towards energy efficiency and climate neutrality.Integration of energy efficiency measures in DH systems is proposed by using benchmarking approach after the ranging of criteria that have the most significant effect on DH tariffs. The comparison of different heat tariff benchmarking shows different results in terms of those DH systems, which need to reduce heat tariff, and those that are allowed to increase the heat tariff level. However, the multilinear regression and empirical methods do not indicate stimulation for the energy efficiency increase of DH systems. The reference benchmark method shows that the highest reference tariff is for fossil fuel CHP systems, which would not motivate these systems to become carbon neutral. In the proposed Climate index benchmark method, the allowed heat tariff is related to the existing tariff and determined Climate index value. The allowed heat tariff increase would be higher for those systems with better energy efficiency and RES share indicators