The cross-border initiative UNITED HEAT, a cooperation between Stadtwerke Görlitz (SWG) and the Polish heat supplier SEC Zgorzelec, is gaining momentum and has already achieved significant progress.
Decarbonised district heating across national borders – this is the vision that Görlitz and its Polish twin city Zgorzelec aim to realise by 2030. Key players in the planning are Stadtwerke Görlitz and SEC Zgorzelec. The UNITED HEAT project combines diverse resources and innovative generation technologies to decarbonise heat supply and ensure reliability at all times.
Both cities plan to interconnect their heating infrastructure in the heart of Europe to increase security, efficiency and sustainability. By 2030 the networks will not only be linked but also fully converted to renewable energy sources.
The project targets one of the largest CO₂-emitting sectors: heating. Currently Görlitz operates four separate district-heating areas supplied mainly with natural gas, while Zgorzelec has a single network powered by lignite with natural gas as a supplement. Together these systems emit about 50,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually. The stated goal is to eliminate these emissions entirely by 2030.
The mayors of both cities signed a letter of intent in 2020. Since then SWG and SEC Zgorzelec have been advancing the project. As Zgorzelec’s mayor Rafał Gronicz says: “We are consistently implementing the agreement from four years ago so that our residents can soon heat their homes with climate-neutral district energy.”
The concept phase, including the acquisition of key funding, is largely complete, allowing initial construction to start in 2025. The plan calls for connecting all five heating areas, requiring 12 km of new pipelines. This cross-border network will allow more efficient and flexible generation of heat from climate-neutral technologies.
By 2030:
Initial funding applications to the EU and Germany’s BEW programme were submitted in 2024 and received very positive responses—placing the project among the few in Europe approved under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). Another application for additional plants and pipelines was filed in January 2025, with a decision expected in summer.
Matthias Block, CEO of SWG, stresses that EU and federal financial support is essential to achieve carbon neutrality while keeping prices affordable for residents.
SWG has purchased a 37-hectare site in the “An der Autobahn” industrial area for solar installations and a seasonal ground-basin heat storage facility. In the second half of 2025, Görlitz will begin expanding biogas storage and building the first kilometre of the connection between the Königshufen combined heat and power plant and the “Nord” sewage plant. Meanwhile, Zgorzelec will start construction of a biomass heating plant.
A German-Polish working group of experts from the companies and their stakeholders, including Veolia and E.ON, is steering the project. Around 30 specialists from various countries are working intensively on this forward-looking endeavour.
As Görlitz mayor Octavian Ursu concludes: “Our 2020 decision to create a joint heating network gives the European city of Görlitz/Zgorzelec a pioneering role in Europe. The challenges lie both in cross-border infrastructure and in setting fair energy prices so that residents are not disadvantaged.”
The new pipelines will also enable additional neighbourhoods to be connected—an important step in light of Germany’s Building Energy Act, which requires renewable heating by 2028. Matthias Block adds: “Thanks to this project we can also provide individual, decentralised heating solutions for buildings that cannot be connected to the district network in the future.”