Abstract
The building sector is crucial to reach the goals of common climate agreements. This paper contrasts three approaches to reduce emissions from typical residential buildings in Central Europe: the instalment of electric heat pumps (eHP), a thicker insulation of the thermal envelope and the encumbrance of a carbon tax. The use of less carbon intense fuels allows major savings of GHG emissions. An insulation thickness of 30 cm leads to GHG emission savings of 8% against a thickness of just 12 cm, while total cost savings (LCC) remain negligible. The introduction of a carbon tax of up to 250 €/t-CO2-eq. does not necessarily result in a reduction of GHG emissions due to increased costs of construction. It was further found that the focus of legal building regulations on heating demand is sufficient for now but needs to be revised as carbon intensities continue to decrease. The heating then reduces its share of the GHG emissions from 85 to 55% for typical residential buildings. The paper closes with a general expression of the lifecycle costs of a building which is dependent on the factors above.
Highlights
The building sector is crucial to reach the goals of national and international climate agreements, e.g. the Paris Agreement
The GHG emissions and non-renewable primary energy demand, along with other emissions, are the result of a bottom-up lifecycle analysis (LCA) for the representative building defined above.‡ While the quantities of the different building part, e.g. roofs and walls, stem from the assumed geometry and used materials, the emission factors for the materials are based on ökobau.dat.§ While the emission factors for natural gas are as well based on the ökobau.dat the emission factors for electricity are taken from [4] and [5]
The use of electric heat pumps (eHP) is, for most cases, beneficial compared to the use of natural gas
Summary
The building sector is crucial to reach the goals of national and international climate agreements, e.g. the Paris Agreement. Emissions from operation mainly result from heating, mainly using fuel oil and natural gas. As latest statistics e.g. from Germany show, electric heat pumps (eHP) and natural gas (NG) have become the most common heating systems for new buildings in Central Europe. [2] Electricity is produced very differently between countries and sometimes even within countries, which results in a large range of emissions for eHP. To reduce the emissions from operating the building two different approaches exist. A less GHG intensive fuel reduces the emissions during operation without higher insulation standards. This paper contrasts three approaches to reduce emissions from typical residential buildings https://doi.org/10.10 51/matecconf /201928202 003 in Central Europe: the instalment of electric heat pumps (eHP), a thicker insulation of the thermal envelope and the encumbrance of a carbon tax
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