A GIS-Based Planning Approach for Urban Power and Natural Gas Distribution Grids with Different Heat Pump Scenarios

Jolando M Kisse,Martin Braun,Simon Letzgus,Tanja M Kneiske

doi:10.3390/en13164052

Abstract

Next to building insulation, heat pumps driven by electrical compressors (eHPs) or by gas engines (geHPs) can be used to reduce primary energy demand for heating. They come with different investment requirements, operating costs and emissions caused. In addition, they affect both the power and gas grids, which necessitates the assessment of both infrastructures regarding grid expansion planning. To calculate costs and CO2 emissions, 2000 electrical load profiles and 180 different heat demand profiles for single-family homes were simulated and heat pump models were applied. In a case study for a neighborhood energy model, the load profiles were assigned to buildings in an example town using public data on locations, building age and energetic refurbishment variants. In addition, the town’s gas distribution network and low voltage grid were modeled. Power and gas flows were simulated and costs for required grid extensions were calculated for 11% and 16% heat pump penetration. It was found that eHPs have the highest energy costs but will also have the lowest CO2 emissions by 2030 and 2050. For the investigated case, power grid investments of 11,800 euros/year are relatively low compared to gas grid connection costs of 70,400 euros/year. If eHPs and geHPs are combined, a slight reduction of overall costs is possible, but emissions would rise strongly compared to the all-electric case.

Highlights

One important aspect of mitigating climate change is the increase in energy efficiency, in the building sector
On the basis of a large number and different types of public data only, a low voltage and gas grid model with a highly diversified spatial resolution has been created for an example town and made available in the Supplementary Materials
We did a mutual investigation of power and natural gas distribution infrastructure for a whole town using a pipe and power-flow grid analysis

Summary

Introduction

One important aspect of mitigating climate change is the increase in energy efficiency, in the building sector. Sets an energy efficiency target for 2030 of at least 32.5% improvement compared to the 2007 business-as-usual scenario [1,2]. The German government has set a goal of an 80% reduction in primary energy consumption by 2050 compared to 2008 for the building sector [3]. Space heating and domestic hot water provision in private households accounted for 21.9% of the total final energy consumption in Germany in 2017 [4]. The research field of future energy-efficient heat supply is manifold and consists of various sub-research areas that overlap with other energy research questions.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion