Abstract
Municipal energy systems in the northern regions of Finland, Norway, and Sweden face multiple challenges: large-scale industries, cold climate, and a high share of electric heating characterize energy consumption and cause significant peak electricity demand. Local authorities are committed in contributing to national goals on CO2 emission reductions by improving energy efficiency and investing in local renewable electricity generation, while considering their own objectives for economic development, increased energy self-sufficiency, and affordable energy costs. This paper formulates a multi-objective optimization problem about these goals that is solved by interfacing the energy systems simulation tool EnergyPLAN with a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm implemented in Matlab. A sensitivity analysis on some key economic parameters is also performed. In this way, optimal alternatives are identified for the integrated electricity and heating sectors and valuable insights are offered to decision-makers in local authorities. Piteå (Norrbotten, Sweden) is used as a case study that is representative of Nordic municipalities, and results show that CO2 emissions can be reduced by 60% without a considerable increase in total costs and that peak electricity import can be reduced by a maximum of 38%.
Highlights
The UNFCCC Paris Agreement aims at strengthening global responses to limit the increase of global average temperature to 1.5 ◦ C above pre-industrial levels
The electricity sector only runs were configured with 100 individuals and 300 generations, whereas integrated electricity and heating sectors runs were configured with 200 individuals and 500 generations
This paper exploited the benefits of combining EnergyPLAN, an energy system analysis and simulation tool, with a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm to investigate the optimal alternatives for the development of the integrated electricity and heating sectors of a municipal energy system in the Nordic context
Summary
The UNFCCC Paris Agreement aims at strengthening global responses to limit the increase of global average temperature to 1.5 ◦ C above pre-industrial levels. Sweden’s binding target set by 2030 on GHG emission reduction was decided to be 40% from 2005 levels [2]. Swedens territorial CO2 emissions from electricity generation and heating have dropped from a 2005 level of 9.3 MtCO2 and reached 5.38 MtCO2 in 2017 [4]. The project Arctic Energy, funded through the EU-program “Interreg Nord,” was implemented by partner institutions from Finland, Sweden, and Norway between 2016 and 2018, and it provided energy systems analyses and simulations of future scenarios in order to support decision-makers of Nordic municipalities in their efforts to achieve GHG emissions targets and increase energy self-sufficiency, while ensuring secure and affordable energy supply [5]. This work continues the studies performed during the Arctic Energy project and investigates optimal alternatives for sustainable energy systems in Nordic municipalities with a focus on electricity and heating sectors
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