Decarbonizing a large City's heating system using heat pumps: A case study of Beijing

Abstract

Decarbonizing the heating sector is a crucial step for the transition of the energy system towards the climate-friendly direction. Using Beijing as an example, this study analyzes how a large metropolitan city could develop a low-carbon heating sector towards 2030. We simulate different scenarios of deploying natural gas boilers and heat pumps to reduce CO2 emissions of Beijing's heating sector in the EnergyPLAN model. A high share of natural gas heating is found to be incompatible with a continuous decrease in direct CO2 emissions from the heating sector and thus cannot be a long-term solution for low-carbon heating in Beijing. Increasing the share of heat pump heating is advantageous in terms of carbon emissions, air pollutants emissions, benefits to the power grid, and economic operation. The proportion of heating provided by heat pumps increased to 25%, the capacity of district gas boilers remains unchanged and the CO2 emissions per unit of electricity decrease to 0.31 Mt/TWh offers a promising pathway to decarbonize Beijing's heating sector and the total CO2 emissions of Beijing's heating system in 2030 will be 21% lower than the level in 2015.