Climate change impacts on trends and extremes in future heating and cooling demands over Europe

M.A.D Larsen,S Petrović,A.M Radoszynski,R Mckenna,O Balyk

doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110397

M.A.D Larsen, S Petrović + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2020.110397

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Abstract

The paper analyses effects of changes in temperatures on heating and cooling demands in Europe until 2050. Specifically, the study addresses changes in trends (10-year mean) and extremes (10-year min/max). The analysis is based on two GHG emission climate scenarios (RCP2.6 and RCP4.5) and eight high-resolution regional climate models and results are provided as relative and absolute changes on grid and country scales. Population density is used as proxy for spatial distribution of demands.Projected future temperatures are proportional with RCP scenario and distance into the future and the highest relative changes occur towards north-eastern Europe and for high-altitude areas. The temperature changes lead to general decreased heating demands and corresponding increased cooling demands. In general, higher spreads are seen between demand change ratios for individual models when addressing extremes as opposed to trends: The general 2010–2050 change ratios for heating between countries are 0.85–95 for model means and average 0.69 for the extreme analysis. For cooling, corresponding ratios are 1.25–1.5 for model means and average 2.76 for model maxima. For absolute demand changes, some countries are projected to experience significant changes e.g. exceeding a doubling in cooling demands. The results are suggested as a basis for energy system analyses.

Highlights

The building sector is regarded as a main contributor to the global energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions [1]
As a measure for model robustness, the inter-model temperature standard deviations for each period and RCP have been plotted (Fig. 1b – 1e, inserts) showing a general trend towards a higher robustness for the RCP4.5 model ensemble as opposed to the RCP2.6 ensemble. This could be explained by the relatively weak trend in the RCP2.6 scenario as often completely omitted from regional climate models (RCM) climate change studies [45,46]
Despite the uncertainties stemming from the inter-model spread, the results clearly depict that some countries and regions will experience severe changes in heating and cooling demands for certain periods and seasons which the energy systems in question need to be able to account for

Summary

Introduction

The building sector is regarded as a main contributor to the global energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions [1]. It currently accounts for 40% of the primary energy consumption in the US and EU [2] and 30% and 36% of energyrelated CO2 emissions globally [3] and for EU [4], respectively including electricity related losses. In a European context, residential buildings make up around 75% of the total European building floor area [5], in which around 60% of these energy demands and emissions are related to heating and cooling applications [6]. Whilst large differences between European member states are seen, exemplified by e.g. large shares of district heating in the Nordic region, around 90% of heat generation occurs in the building it supplies [9].

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