Decarbonising the residential heating sector: A techno-economic assessment of selected technologies

Huckebrink, David; Bertsch, Valentin

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2022.124605

Cited by 13 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The representation of a typical unrefurbished building in Germany is based on an existing model [61], which is implemented in the energy system optimisation framework Backbone [62]. Energy system models in Backbone are composed of grids grouping nodes as well as units converting energy between nodes and across grids.…”

Section: Building Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

How user behaviour affects emissions and costs in residential energy systems—The impacts of clothing and thermal comfort

Huckebrink,

Finke,

Bertsch

2023

Environ. Res. Commun.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To mitigate climate change, energy systems must be decarbonised. Human behaviour affects energy systems on residential scales through technology adoption and use, but is often neglected in models for analysing energy systems. We therefore study the optimal planning and operation of a sector-coupled residential energy system driven by economic and environmental interests and user behaviour in terms of desired thermal comfort and clothing. Methodologically, we combine a highly flexible energy system optimisation framework for investment and operational planning, a thermal building representation, a continuous and empirically founded objective for thermal comfort as the sole driver of heating demand and an analytical multi-objective optimisation method in one sector-coupled model. We find that optimal investment in and operation of technology are highly dependent on users’ clothing and the desired comfort level. Changing from unadapted to warm clothing in transition and winter season can reduce costs by 25 %, carbon emissions by 48 %, gas consumption by 84 %, heat demand by 20 % or necessary PV installations by 28 % without lowering thermal comfort. Similar reduction potentials are offered by lowering thermal comfort without changing clothing. We find that heat pumps, rooftop solar PV, batteries and generously sized water tanks are essential technologies that should be adopted regardless of user behaviour, while hydrogen is not. Full decarbonisation would require additional measures like refurbishments or further carbon-free energy sources. We conclude that in striving for decarbonisation and independency of gas, appropriate clothing and sector coupling should be promoted by policy makers and utilised by end-users as very efficient ways of reducing costs, carbon emissions, energy use and gas dependency.

show abstract

Section: Building Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

How user behaviour affects emissions and costs in residential energy systems—The impacts of clothing and thermal comfort

Huckebrink,

Finke,

Bertsch

2023

Environ. Res. Commun.

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In Germany, a techno-economic evaluation of different heatgeneration technologies and refurbishments was carried out, and sensitivity analyses for indoor temperatures and hydrogen prices were performed. The results showed that the use of a combination of solar photovoltaic, heat pumps, electrolysers and fuel cells was more cost-effective than refurbishments [9].…”

Section: Background Scope and Novelty Of The Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Energy Saving, Energy Efficiency or Renewable Energy: Which Is Better for the Decarbonization of the Residential Sector in Italy?

Noro

Busato

2023

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The residential sector is currently responsible for approximately 30% of the final energy consumption and 12% of direct CO2 emissions in Italy, mainly due to the heating and cooling of buildings and the use of domestic hot water. Such figures show a significant potential for reducing non-renewable primary energy utilization to comply with the decarbonization constraints of the European Union. In this context, the purpose of this work is to provide a quantitative assessment of the effect of a different number of actions (eight for energy savings, four for energy efficiency and two for the installation of renewable energy plants) that could be implemented at the national level to reduce the consumption of natural gas in the residential sector. Two typical residential buildings are dynamically simulated using Trnsys®, and the savings from energy, economic and CO2 emissions points of view are evaluated in the different climatic zones of Italy. The most effective action foresees the replacement of natural gas boilers and old air conditioners with modern heat pumps and air/air chillers as well as the installation of a controlled mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. This solution allows for non-renewable primary energy savings of 58% and an economic savings on annual energy costs of 72%.

show abstract

“…Further simplified approaches enable optimisation-based model-predictive control (MPC), both for individual buildings and larger portions of the building stock [23]. Recent building-stock-scale energy-system optimisation studies include an analysis of the impacts of widespread smart electrical heating in Finland [35], a techno-economic decarbonisation assessment of the German residential building stock [36], and a pan-European multiflexibility-source load-shifting study focusing on Germany [37].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of a Lumped-Capacitance Building Thermal Modelling Approach for Energy-Market-Scale Flexibility Studies

Rasku,

Simson,

Kiviluoma

2024

Buildings

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Despite all the literature on building energy management, building-stock-scale models depicting its impact for energy-market-scale optimisation models are lacking. To address this shortcoming, an open-source tool called ArchetypeBuildingModel.jl has been developed for aggregating building-stock-level data into simplified lumped-capacitance thermal models compatible with existing open-source energy-system modelling frameworks. This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility of these simplified thermal models by comparing their performance against dedicated building simulation software, as well as examining their sensitivity to key modelling and parameter assumptions. Modelling and parameter assumptions comparable to the existing literature achieved an acceptable performance according to ASHRAE Guideline 14 across all tested buildings and nodal configurations. The most robust performance was achieved with a period of variations above 13 days and interior node depth between 0.1 and 0.2 for structural thermal mass calibrations, and with external shading coefficients between 0.6 and 1.0 and solar heat gain convective fractions between 0.4 and 0.6 for solar heat gain calibrations. Furthermore, three-plus-node lumped-capacitance thermal models are recommended when modelling buildings with structures varying in terms of thermal mass. Nevertheless, the ArchetypeBuildingModel.jl performance was found to be robust against uncertain key parameter assumptions, making it plausible for energy-market-scale applications.

show abstract

Decarbonising the residential heating sector: A techno-economic assessment of selected technologies

Cited by 13 publications

References 26 publications

How user behaviour affects emissions and costs in residential energy systems—The impacts of clothing and thermal comfort

How user behaviour affects emissions and costs in residential energy systems—The impacts of clothing and thermal comfort

Energy Saving, Energy Efficiency or Renewable Energy: Which Is Better for the Decarbonization of the Residential Sector in Italy?

Sensitivity of a Lumped-Capacitance Building Thermal Modelling Approach for Energy-Market-Scale Flexibility Studies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About