Fourth Generation of District Heating and Centralized Heating Supply Systems of Ukraine

This article investigates possibilities and expediency of transformation of existing Ukra'inian District Heating Systems (DH-UA) into the modern district heating of the 4th Generation (4G-DH). Three research problems were tasked to be solved. The first concerns studying the current state of existing DHUA. The second one was connected with the analysis of the requirements to the last generation of district heating systems that begin to spread in the EU. The third problem was searching of ways to transform of DH-UA to 4G-DH. The survey of the current state of Ukrainian heating networks shows that existing systems DH UA correspond to 2G-DH-3G-DH levels. These systems from one hand are on the critically low technical level and on the other hand have the great potentials of improvements of energetic, economic and ecological characteristics of consumption of primary energy sources in Ukraine. The analysis of the opportunities, prospects and pace of convergence of existing DH-UA to the requirements of the last generation of European DH systems was carried out. Implementation of 4G-DH as an energy-efficient, low carbon, competitive heating system is a key issue for reforming the housing and utilities sector in Ukraine.