Abstract
The imperative to reduce emissions to counteract climate change has led to the use of renewables progressively in more areas. Looking at district heating, there is a growing interest in coupling current production systems and carbon-neutral technologies. This paper presents a methodology to support decision making about carbon-neutral technologies for district heating. The process is organized in two stages, the first one aims at optimizing the different carbon-neutral technologies according to an objective function and assess uncertainties and dependencies. In the second stage, the alternatives are evaluated using Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA), a simulation-based method specifically designed to consider imprecise information. The methodology was applied to a case-study in Torino, Italy, which simulates the city district heating network at a smaller scale, with the aim to explore strategies for replacing gas boiler with more sustainable technologies. According to preference information provided by decision makers, the most preferred alternative resulted in the introduction of a solar heat plant combined with an increase size of daily heat storage. Solar heat can benefit from incentives while reducing operational costs and emissions, maximizing the use of carbon-neutral heat thanks to the storage.
Highlights
The transition toward a sustainable society is rooted in the use of renewable and carbon-neutral technologies, which have increased their share from 11 to 18% in the last 10 years in Europe [1].these efforts proved not to be sufficient to meet the ambitious emissions reduction target set by EU for 2050, i.e., reducing emissions by 80–95% compared to the 1990 levels [2]
This paper presents a methodology for supporting decision making of carbon-neutral technologies for district heating (DH), designed to consider uncertainties and dependencies for both baseline system and energy system alternatives
This section first analyzes the outcome of the simulations performed with LP2, and how they were used in Stochastic Multicriteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA) simulations
Summary
The transition toward a sustainable society is rooted in the use of renewable and carbon-neutral technologies, which have increased their share from 11 to 18% in the last 10 years in Europe [1]. These efforts proved not to be sufficient to meet the ambitious emissions reduction target set by EU for 2050, i.e., reducing emissions by 80–95% compared to the 1990 levels [2]. Introduction of a solar heat plant and increase of daily storage
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