Berlin prepares 'huge thermos' to help heat homes in winter

District heating can be highly effective. Common in Soviet-bloc areas, near power stations to take advantage of waste heat, and on university campuses. Downtown Toronto even has district cooling by pumping cold water from the depths of Lake Ontario and using it to cool office buildings

https://www.enwave.com/case-studies/enwave-and-toronto-water...

I'm particularly interested in thermal storage solutions since we already have the technology, it can be a lot cheaper than batteries, and use of fossil fuels for direct heating is a huge opportunity for electrification. Thermal storage can be built right now to absorb excess solar generation in cold temperatures and allow coasting through cloudy or other low generation days. I would love to dedicate some otherwise useless space in my basement to thermal storage, pumping heat in when electricity is cheap and slowly releasing it through my house to avoid using energy during peak/expensive periods.

NYC has this too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_steam_system

A friend in Linkoping showed me his utility closet where they tie into the city hot water system. I was surprised, they seemed too far from the center of town. But I guess the system of insulation and buried pipes makes it reasonable. I believe they had two metered taps into the system, one for heating the home and one for their pool. I assume the metering is based on the amount of water pumped into/out of the house. Is that correct or does it work from temperature differences?