Nordic District Heating Networks Monitored from the Sky with Thermal Imaging  

District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralised location for residential and commercial heating. Hot water or steam is distributed to households and companies through an underground network of pipes. District heating can potentially help to reduce a city’s carbon footprint by increasing the efficiency of heating systems throughout the entire city. According to some researchers district heating is the cheapest method for a city to cut on carbon emissions. But maintaining a large district heating network can be a difficult task. To help large Scandinavian cities to effectively monitor and maintain their district heating networks, the Linköping, Sweden, based company Termisk Systemteknik has developed a district heating scanning system from the sky, based on thermal imaging cameras from FLIR Systems.