| Summary: | In Finland, old apartments (1980s) contribute toward emissions. The objective is to reduce CO<sub>2</sub> emissions to reach Europe’s targets of 2050. Three different centralized solar-based district heating systems integrated either with non-renovated or renovated old buildings in the community were simulated and compared against the reference city-level district heating system. The three proposed centralized systems were: Case 1: photovoltaic (PV) with a ground source heat pump (GSHP); Case 2: PV with an air-water heat pump (A2WHP); and Case 3: PV with A2WHPs, seasonal storage, and GSHPs. TRNSYS simulation software was used for dynamic simulation of the systems. Life cycle cost (LCC), CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and purchased electricity were calculated and compared. The results show that the community-level district heating system (Case 3) outperformed Case 1, Case 2, and the city-level district heating. With non-renovated buildings, the relative emissions reduction was 83% when the reference energy system was replaced with Case 3 and the emissions reduction cost was 3.74 €/kg.CO<sub>2</sub>/yr. The relative emissions reduction was 91% when the buildings were deep renovated and integrated with Case 3 when compared to the reference system with non-renovated buildings and the emission reduction cost was 11.9 €/kg.CO<sub>2</sub>/yr. Such district heating systems could help in meeting Europe’s emissions target for 2050.
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