Abstract
Heat demand dominates the final energy use in northern cities. This study examines how changes in heat demand may affect solutions for zero-emission energy systems, energy system flexibility with variable renewable electricity production, and the use of existing energy systems for deep decarbonization. Helsinki city (60 °N) in the year 2050 is used as a case for the analysis. The future district heating demand is estimated considering activity-driven factors such as population increase, raising the ambient temperature, and building energy efficiency improvements. The effect of the heat demand on energy system transition is investigated through two scenarios. The BIO-GAS scenario employs emission-free gas technologies, bio-boilers and heat pumps. The WIND scenario is based on large-scale wind power with power-to-heat conversion, heat pumps, and bio-boilers. The BIO-GAS scenario combined with a low heat demand profile (−12% from 2018 level) yields 16% lower yearly costs compared to a business-as-usual higher heat demand. In the WIND-scenario, improving the lower heat demand in 2050 could save the annual system 6–13% in terms of cost, depending on the scale of wind power.
Highlights
Decarbonization in the power sector has proceeded positively, which makes it interesting to use electricity in other sectors as well
Using the Helsinki energy system as a case, this paper investigates alternative pathways for zero-emission energy production and integration of large scale variable renewable energies (VRE), with emphasis on the heating sector and heat demand
Two scenarios (BIO-GAS and Wind power and P2H scenario (WIND)) focus on a zero-emission system operating with existing gas technologies and bio-boilers and another with large-scale wind power integration
Summary
Decarbonization in the power sector has proceeded positively, which makes it interesting to use electricity in other sectors as well (so-called sector-coupling). Northern cities form in this context an interesting case, as the heat demand may be well over half of the final energy use [5,6,7,8]. In cold climates, combined fossil fuels heat and power is often employed in an urban context for efficient energy production [6,9]. This is the case in Helsinki, capital of Finland, which was chosen as a case study in this paper, where gas and coal-based combined heat and power (CHP) covers some 98% of the heat production [10,11]
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