在美国，蒸汽区域供暖已广泛应用于大学、军事设施、医院大楼和城市。然而，由于来自相对廉价的石油和天然气的竞争，许多城市系统已经被放弃。大多数蒸汽系统效率低下，无法使用天然气和石油，也无法经济地为客户服务。欧洲区域供暖的历史与美国截然不同。北欧和东欧区域供暖的发展始于20世纪50年代初。使用热水而不是蒸汽作为运输介质，事实证明，这种系统更经济。最近，北欧的概念被引入了美国的两个城市——圣保罗和明尼苏达州的威尔玛。圣保罗的热水项目分别于1983年夏季和秋季开始建设和运营。 圣保罗项目的整个一期工程将花费两年的时间来建设，并将连接大约80栋建筑，总容量为150 MW（t）。该系统覆盖整个圣保罗商业区，包括私人拥有的办公室和零售大楼、市和县政府大楼、医院、州议会大厦和一些工业客户。1982年夏天，明尼苏达州威尔玛市用现代热水系统取代了旧的蒸汽系统。热水系统的第一阶段在中央商务区建设。该系统的峰值热负荷约为10 MW（t），包括约12000英尺（3600米）的网络。威尔玛系统在1983年秋天完成了第二阶段的开发。这两个新系统展示了低温热水区域供暖技术的优势。 该系统建造经济，可靠性高，维护和运行成本低。引文:研讨会，ASHRAE交易，1984年，第90卷，pt。密苏里州堪萨斯城2B

In the United States, steam district heating has been used extensively in universities, military installations, hospital complexes, and cities. However, many of the city systems have been abandoned because of competition from relatively cheap oil and natural gas. Most of the steam systems were inefficient and could not use natural gas and oil and economically serve their customers. The history of district heating in Europe is drastically different from that in the United States. The development of district heating in northern and eastern Europe started in the early 1950s. Hot water, rather than steam, was used as the transport medium and the systems have proved to be more economical.Recently, the northern European concept has been introduced into two U.S. cities—St. Paul and Willmar, Minnesota. The hot water project in St. Paul started construction and operation in the summer and fall of 1983, respectively. The entire first phase of the St. Paul project will take two summers to construct and will connect approximately 80 buildings for a total of 150 MW(t). The system spans the entire St. Paul business district and includes privately owned offices and retail buildings, city and county government buildings, hospitals, the state capitol complex, and several industrial customers. The City of Willmar, Minnesota, replaced an old steam system with a modern hot water system in the summer of 1982. The first phase of the hot water system was constructed in the central business district. The system serves a peak thermal load of about 10 MW(t) and includes about 12,000 ft (3600 m) of network. The Willmar system completed the second stage of development in the fall of 1983. These two new systems demonstrate the benefits of the low-temperature hot water district heating technology. The systems are economical to build, have high reliability, and have low maintenance and operating cost.