German term (edited): W�rmekosten

Basically, there are couple of ways to heat your apartment/house/business:

1. Historically most structures were heated with a self-contained heater using coal or wood. Later different fuels were used for a variety of reasons, i.e. availability, price, environmental impact, etc. In the last couple of decades natural gas has been used increasingly for heating.

2. As cities developed and people were situated much closer together it became possible to physically law pipes from power plants, which had an overabundance on heat, to the various houses and buildings, and thus "district heating" was born. This was particularly interesting because of the possibility of saving costs in heating. Theoretically there would be less costs of maintenance because there would only be one "heater," i.e. the power plant. The companies creating power (and heat at the same time) were able to purchase fuels cheaper because they order large amounts. Additionally, the utilities could earn more money: In the past they would just let the heat off into the air, water, etc. - now they could sell it.

Here "Wärmekosten" is referring to the costs of district heating. The "Heizkosten" will be comprised either of all of the costs in connection with a self-contained heating unit, i.e. fuel and maintenance, or - like here - the costs of getting the heat from the local utilities.

Source: personal experience (I'll look for some references and get back to you).

I hope that was clear enough. :-)

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Note added at 56 mins (2006-01-02 11:31:29 GMT)
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Also see pages 3 & 4 here http://www.e-con.tv/downloads/praesentation_ove.pdf
:-)

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Note added at 58 mins (2006-01-02 11:33:57 GMT)
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BTW - when I say "district heating," I am referring to "Fernwärme."
;-)

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Note added at 1 hr 1 min (2006-01-02 11:36:47 GMT)
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Stephen: Sorry, that was a typo - I meant "they physically lay pipes" that transfer the heat from the power plant to the building being heated. Is xxx a utilities company ("Stadtwerke")?
:-)

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Note added at 1 hr 5 mins (2006-01-02 11:41:09 GMT)
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Here in Kiel you can see where the pipes lead when it snows. Some people are lucky enough to have the pipes leading directly under the sidewalk in front of their houses because they don't have to shovel the snow away - it just melts. There is really no need to insulate the pipes any better because the power plants usually have an overabundance of heat.
;-)