About Varmelast

Since 7 January 2008, Varmelast has worked out daily district heating plans for the the Greater Copenhagen area. Since 27 April 2009, we have also worked out plans for the production of district heating within the same area.

Varmelast is responsible for:

• Ensuring the daily district heating forecasts for load distribution in cooperation with HOFOR, CTR and VEKS.
• The planning of the district heating production for the next operating day (day-ahead) in cooperation with Ørsted, HOFOR and the waste incineration plants. The production companies announce serviceable production capacity and offer the capacity according to a fixed agreement on which costs should be included. Varmelast calculates the production distribution among the production companies based on their supply and calculations of bottlenecks in the district heating network. 
• Adjustment of district heating production plans during the operating day (intra-day) at 3.45am, 7.45am, 10.30am, 3.45pm, 7.45pm and 11:45pm
• Daily operation follow-up on how far the realised production has been from the most profitable production. 
• Development of tools for the joint optimisation of the load distribution.
• Safeguard of the required data basis for load distribution.
• The cooperation between the control rooms and the back office functions of CTR and VEKS in each of the three district heating companies.

Varmelasts challenges are numerous and diverse. The confidentiality between the parties must first and foremost be maintained as the CHP producers also act on the power market terms. Moreover Varmelast must ensure a financially optimum load distribution of power and heat and at the same time, the prioritised heat production from the waste incineration plants and geothermics are considered. Last but not least, Varmelast.dk ensures that the three integrated district heating systems interact – and that all the district heat customers have heat 24/7.

Varmelast load distributes according to the heat balance costs and thus does not deal with any settlement. The heat purchase settlement is based on agreements/contracts between the producers and the district heating companies.  Likewise negotiation of agreements and planning of district heating also take place in the district heating companies.

Varmelast is staffed with five employees from the three district heating companies: two – including the manager – are CTR employees and the other two are employed in VEKS and HOFOR respectively.