Urban manufacturing is increasingly discussed as a contributor to sustainable urban development, particularly through its potential to supply industrial waste heat for district heating networks (DHN).
This paper examines whether urban manufacturing in Germany can provide a meaningful source of waste heat for residential heating. Drawing on novel data from the Plattform für Abwärme (PfA), which reports over 19,000 industrial processes across 2,668 sites, we analyse the spatial distribution, sectoral composition, and residential proximity of waste heat sources. After filtering for relevant sites (≥50 °C, ≥12 h daily availability), we assess their distribution across urban, suburban, and rural contexts and conduct a spatial analysis for four federal states—Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Lower Saxony, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Our results show that manufacturing accounts for 62% of all reported waste heat sources, with 51% located in towns and suburbs and only 22% in densely populated cities. Notably, 82% of identified sites in the four states lie within 500 metres of residential areas, indicating substantial potential for DHN integration. However, marked regional differences in sectoral composition demonstrate that opportunities are uneven and strongly context dependent. We conclude that industrial waste heat offers a significant but supplementary contribution to Germany’s heating transition. Realising this potential will require overcoming technical, governance, and socio-economic barriers, while recognising that defossilisation and sectoral transformation may alter future availability.