Residential demands for space heating and hot water account for 31% of the total European energy demand. Space heating is highly dependent on ambient conditions and susceptible to climate change. We adopt a techno-economic standpoint and assess the impact of climate change on decentralized heating demand and the cost-optimal mix of heating technologies. Temperature data with high spatial resolution from nine climate models implementing three Representative Concentration Pathways from IPCC are used to estimate climate induced changes in the European demand side for heating. The demand side is modelled by the proxy of heating-degree days. The supply side is modelled by using a screening curve approach to the economics of heat generation. We find that space heating demand decreases by up to 16% and 24% in low and intermediate concentration pathways. This reduction reaches 42% in the most extreme global warming scenario. When considering historic weather data, we find a heterogeneous mix of technologies are cost-optimal, depending on the heating load factor (number of full-load hours per year). Increasing ambient temperatures toward the end-century improve the economic performance of heat pumps in all concentration pathways. Cost optimal technologies broadly correspond to heat markets and policies in Europe, with some exceptions.

Wind and solar sources currently drive an increased weather-dependent electricity production because of decreasing costs and efforts to mitigate climate change. Unfortunately, some degree of climate change appears to be unavoidable. We use different projections of climatic outcomes over the 21st century to assess how important key metrics of a highly renewable electricity system are affected by climate change. Smail Kozarcanin, Hailiang Liu, Gorm Bruun Andresen sko@eng.au.dk (S.K.) gba@eng.au.dk (G.B.A.) HIGHLIGHTS Climate change shows impacts on large-scale metrics of a European electricity system Largest climate impacts are observed within fully winddominated electricity systems 6 high-resolution CMIP5 GCMs under the forcing of three IPCC RCPs have been used State-of-the-art wind and solar capacity factors and electricity demand data were used Kozarcanin et al., SUMMARYFalling prices and significant technology developments currently drive an increased weather-dependent electricity production from renewables. In light of the changing climate, it is relevant to investigate to what extent climate change directly impacts future highly weather-dependent electricity systems. Here, we use three IPCC CO 2 concentration pathways for the period 2006-2100 with six high-resolution climate experiments for the European domain. Climate data are used to calculate bias-adjusted 3-hourly time series of wind and solar generation and temperature-corrected demand time series for 30 European countries using a state-of-the-art methodology. Weather-driven electricity system analysis is then applied to compare five key metrics of highly renewable electricity systems. We find that climate change changes the need for dispatchable electricity by up to 20%. The remaining key metrics, such as the benefit of transmission and storage as well as requirements for balancing capacity and reserves, change by up to 5%.

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