Abstract
<p>The importance of strategic energy planning in municipalities continues to increase due to the current challenges in environmental<br>and climate protection and is therefore an important topic at present.<br>The new German Heat Planning Act introduces an instrument for strategic planning of the heat transition at local level. The key point in heat<br>planning is the designation of heat supply areas. Therefore, the partitioning of municipalities is relevant e.g. for heat routing planning so<br>that areas for heating networks can be defined. This paper presents two<br>approaches to the partitioning of municipalities. The first approach is<br>based on Max-P Clustering, the second on Equal-Size Spectral Clustering. Both approaches provide useful results with advantages and disadvantages depending on the application. Equal-size spectral clustering<br>basically defines smaller areas, whereas Max-P clustering defines more<br>spatially bound areas.</p>