Abstract
The blind spot can be defined as the area around the vehicle where the driver cannot see through the mirrors without turning their head or taking their eyes off the road. Similar blind spots occur in energy policy. Blind spots can occur in forecasting economic development and creating policy documents. This study uncovers potential blind spots and controversies in the sustainability assessment of energy supply technologies. A composite sustainability index was constructed to compare district heating with four individual heating technologies—wood pellet boilers, natural gas boilers, solar collectors, and heat pumps. A total of 19 indicators were selected and grouped into four dimensions of sustainability—technical, environmental, economic, and social. The results reveal that district heating can compete with individual heating technologies in all dimensions of sustainability; however, a possible blind spot lies in evaluating environmental performance indicators of the different heating technologies. This study provides a novel decision-making tool that policy-makers could use to identify and avoid potential blind spots and uncertainties in energy policy at an early stage.
Highlights
The transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the most pressing challenges on the global policy agenda
The absolute leader in the technical dimension was district heating which reached the highest values in indicators, such as opportunities for diversification of utilised energy resources, operational stability, and opportunities for the utilisation of low-quality energy resources. These results are consistent with the study by [27] and argues that opportunities for excess, low quality and waste heat utilisation are essential factors and benefits of district heating systems, raising their efficiency and competitiveness above other competing individual heating solutions
Heat pumps reached the second-highest score in the technical dimension due to their highest efficiency ratio and high score for both stable availability of energy resources and district heating since both technologies offer unrestricted access to energy resources
Summary
The transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the most pressing challenges on the global policy agenda. 55% by the year 2030, compared to levels in 1990, thereby significantly surpassing its initial goal of 40% [1]. This political commitment forces the EU and its Member States to reassess current energy policies and legislation to reach the ambitiously raised climate change mitigation goals [2]. There are situations when the government can not overlook existing blind spots in policy-making. They tend to treat climate change issues solely as technical matters while most of the challenges are highly reliant on social and political aspects [5].
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