Designing residential energy systems considering prospective costs and life cycle GHG emissions

Abstract

Novel energy technologies are typically associated with large investments and environmental impacts generated in the construction phase. In this work, we present a systematic approach to optimally design residential energy systems, considering (prospective) costs and life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a large set of low-carbon energy technologies and sources. To achieve this, an optimization problem has been formulated and is tested on several scenarios considering climate-specific heat and electricity demand as well as scenario-specific conditions, such as the flexibility of grid electricity tariffs and associated GHG intensities. With GHG-intensive grid electricity supply and flexible energy tariffs, we recommend to implement policy measures to encourage the investment in residential solar PV-coupled batteries and heat pumps, especially in the near future. The inclusion of environmental impacts generated from the production of energy technologies cannot be neglected; they should be considered during the design phase of residential energy systems. Current high electricity and natural gas prices result in the installation of low-carbon energy system components. This implies that battery systems are already an effective option to reduce the reliance on carbon-intensive and expensive energy supply. And lastly, the large-scale deployment of residential lithium-ion batteries might be limited by global lithium production. This implies that energy system designers should consider alternative electricity storage technologies in their energy technology portfolio.