Heating Bills Research Articles

Impact of Multi-Energy System and Different Control Strategies on a Generic Low-Voltage Distribution Grid

The rising electricity costs, cost of space heating, and domestic hot water end up driving consumers toward reducing expenses by generating their electricity through devices like photovoltaic systems and efficient combined heat and power plants. When coupled with thermal systems via an energy management system (EMS) in a Multi-Energy System (MES), this self-produced electricity can effectively lower electricity and heating bills. However, MESs with EMSs can serve various purposes beyond cost reduction via self-consumption, such as reacting to variable electricity prices, meeting special grid connection conditions, or minimizing CO2 emissions. These diverse strategies create unique prosumer profiles, deviating significantly from standard load profiles. The potential threat to the power grid arises as grid operators lack visibility into which consumers employ which control strategies. This paper investigates the impact of controlled MESs on the power grid compared to average households and answers whether new control strategies affect the planning strategies of low voltage grids. It proposes a comprehensive four-step toolchain for the detailed simulation of thermal–electrical load profiles, MES control strategies, and grid dynamics. It includes a new method for the grid impact analysis of extreme and average bulk values. As a result, this study identifies three primary factors influencing distribution power grids by MESs. Firstly, the presence and scale of photovoltaic (PV) systems significantly affect extreme values in the grid. Secondly, MESs incorporating combined heat and power (CHP) and heat pump (HP) units impact the overall grid performance, mainly reflected in bulk values. Thirdly, the placement of an MES with heating systems, especially when concentrated in one feeder, plays a crucial role in grid dynamics. Despite the three distinct factors identified as impactful on the power grid, this study reveals that the various control strategies, despite leading to vastly different grid profiles, do not exhibit divergent impacts on buses, lines, or transformers. Remarkably, the impact of MESs remains consistently similar across the range of control strategies studied. Therefore, different control strategies do not pose an additional challenge to the grid integration of MESs.

Inform me when it matters: Cost salience, energy consumption, and efficiency investments

Using a large-scale natural experiment in staggered billing dates for energy use in Germany and a unique billing dataset for multi-apartment buildings, this paper shows that the month of billing is a significant determinant of heat energy consumption. A large set of residential buildings demand significantly more heat energy annually, when the bill is issued during off-winter months. The paper finds evidence for salience cycles of heating bills that last up to 4 months, likely because consumer attention to heat energy costs is short-lived and absent during months when heating is off. Importantly, this phenomena is pervasive enough to be detectable even in aggregated building-level consumption data. Results suggest that the mere knowledge of costs is not sufficient and that the response to billing information also hinges on its time-varying salience. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the dynamic and heterogeneous nature of cost salience in the design of effective billing for energy conservation.

Towards sustainable energy consumption for occupants of buildings with collective heating systems

Global warming is forcing us all to reduce our fossil energy consumption. A quantitative survey of people using collective heating in France was conducted to determine whether collective heating hinders energy savings and limits their thermal comfort. The study shows that the existing environment (e.g., heating control devices, access to heating bills) is not suitable for the occupants. Furthermore, the results point out that behaviour is not considered, by occupants, as one of the main energy saving vectors. This is partly due to heating control devices that can be inconvenient to use and thus do not maximize their thermal comfort. Indeed, there is a large difference between the temperature residents want, and the one they get. Our study population reported that rooms are colder than people wish. To achieve sustainable energy savings, efforts should be made to better take into account their comfort while making the technical system more suitable to the occupants, for example, by improving access to and understanding of bills and replacing the current manual control valves with programmable and remotely controllable ones.

Thermodynamic performance of cascaded latent heat storage systems for building heating

Decarbonization of building space heating is essential for China to meet its carbon neutrality goal by 2060. Cascaded latent heat storage (CLHS) coupled with electric heating is a promising technology to promote renewable energy consumption, reduce carbon emissions, and save on heating bills. However, few studies have focused on the thorough investigation of the superiority of the CLHS system over a non-cascaded system. This study investigated the effects of heat transfer fluid (HTF) flow rates, HTF inlet temperatures, and number of stages on the thermodynamic performance of non-cascaded and CLHS systems based on energy and entransy analysis. Results showed that, compared with the non-cascaded system, the charged thermal energy and discharged thermal energy of the two-stage CLHS system increased by 26.5%–44.6% and 19.8%–74.5%, respectively, and the entransy increase of cold HTF increased by 20.0%–75.7%; while, in heating systems, it is not guaranteed that thermodynamic performance improves by using more stages in the CLHS system.

Eco-economic performance and application potential of a novel dual-source heat pump heating system

Decarbonization of building heating is the key to carbon neutrality. Heat pumps have great potential to replace non-renewable heating devices, thus creating economic and renewable heating systems. To overcome the application challenges of conventional heat pumps (HP), a novel dual-source heat pump (DSHP) heating system and corresponding model are proposed and validated in this paper. Simulated by the validated experiment-based model, the performance of the DSHP heating system is numerically investigated by comparing with different systems in various regions. The results show that the DSHP system has higher seasonal performance factors and near-zero defrosting costs when compared to the conventional HP heating system in different regions, resulting in 1.88%–21.53% reductions in annual heating bills and carbon emissions. Compared to the gas boiler heating system, the DSHP system can achieve 20.64%–54.36% of annual heating bill savings and 14.39%–86.09% of annual carbon reductions in selected regions. The investigation of heating characteristics and eco-economic performance of the DSHP system in different regions provided important guiding significance for the DSHP in global application, and thus contributes to achieving bill-saving and low-carbon heating and sustainable development.

The Distribution of Energy Efficiency and Regional Inequality

This paper uses data on heating bills to study the distribution of energy efficiency outcomes in the German multi-apartment residential building stock. To uncover the underlying energy efficiency of buildings, we estimate the causal response of heat energy demand to variability in heating degree days. We examine the heterogeneity in temperature response using both fixed effects regressions and causal forests, and pay close attention to the regional socioeconomic distribution. Our results suggest that the distribution of energy efficiency is not equitable in the West of Germany. We show that although the newer and more energy-efficient buildings are located in the South of Germany, the older building stock in less prosperous East regions of Germany are surprisingly energy efficient, likely as a result of large investments in renovations post-reunification. Finally, we show that the regional distribution of energy efficiency reflects, in part, differences in heating needs – thus, the poorer energy standards of buildings in the North-West should be weighed against the warmer climatic zone.

Impact of green retrofits on heating energy consumption of apartment buildings based on nationwide energy database in South Korea

In South Korea, apartment buildings account for 63% of residential buildings and approximately 40% of apartment buildings were built before 2000, which leads to the growing demand for green retrofits of old apartment buildings. In this study, heating energy consumption of apartment complexes in Seoul and Busan was analyzed using a nationwide database, in order to evaluate the current energy status of apartment complexes. The energy consumption trend with building age were analyzed by classifying the heating bill data into four groups by construction year of apartment complexes. Based on these data, a simulation model of an old apartment building was developed to predict energy performance improvement through green retrofits. The results clearly showed that heating energy consumption increased with building age regardless of heating degree days in both regions. In particular, a significant difference in energy consumption was found in apartment complexes constructed before and after 2000, which implied the necessity of green retrofits for old apartments. The results of green retrofit simulation showed that heating energy consumption was reduced by up to 31.6% and 32% in Seoul and Busan, respectively. The method and results of this study can be applied to establish a green retrofit strategy based on a nationwide database of residential energy.

Enhancing the detection performance of a vision-based window opening detector

In favorable climates and building types, employing natural ventilation can lead to significant energy savings and health benefits. However, in cold climates or conditions, the use of natural ventilation could result in significant heat loss and, consequently, excessive heating bills. This is further exacerbated when windows are left unintentionally open by occupants during the heating season, causing unnecessary energy consumption and wastage, which compromises the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) efficiency. Occupant behavior influences and shapes the building's energy use and indoor environment quality. In particular, the occupant's interaction with the building and its elements, such as window openings, has a considerable effect on the air change rate and the thermal load for ventilation. Studies have shown that real-time occupancy information can improve the operation of HVAC, lighting and utilization of building zones or spaces by coupling it with demand-driven control and occupant-centric strategies. The present study introduces a computer vision and deep learning-based detection approach for the real-time monitoring and recognition of the opening and closing of windows. The study aims to use the detection approach to reduce the energy demand by correctly controlling the HVAC or alerting the building users/operators during periods when windows are left open, minimizing the unwanted air change rates and heating or cooling loads. The study will take an in-depth look into the performance of the detection model, in particular, the influence of data curation, labelling and training employed. Four types of window detectors were configured and evaluated based on the detection of a set of windows within a case study building, which will help seek the most accurate detection and recognition of window opening status. The impact of the detection method on building energy demand was investigated through a series of building energy simulation (BES) scenarios. Simulations were conducted using predefined fixed profiles, along with the window detection and ‘actual’ profiles. The study has shown that the detection and recognition ability of the models ultimately influenced the prediction of the ventilation heat loss and heating energy demand.

Energy-efficiency policies for decarbonising residential heating in Spain: A fuzzy cognitive mapping approach

Decarbonising residential heating poses a major challenge for the energy transition, but the policy attention devoted to and the support provided for it seem limited. There is a rather limited consideration of the perceptions of households, which play a large role in this sector. This in turn may affect the effectiveness of policy instruments. This study contributes to a better understanding of the various perceptions held by key stakeholders, in particular about what can be done to reduce residential heating bills and how. We use a participatory method based on Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM), which accounts for the behavioural complexity of the transition in residential heating and provides a better understanding of policy instruments in terms of stakeholder perception. We then test combinations of policy instruments based on expert opinion and identify the most effective ones based on their perceptions. Our analysis indicates that environmental education and information are perceived to reduce heating bills by a very significant amount. Taxes are perceived to be more effective than subsidies. We also show that policy packages are considered essential: when policy instruments are combined the effects perceived are cumulative, resulting in a much greater expected impact on heating bills and energy consumption.

The price elasticity of residential district heating demand: New evidence from a dynamic panel approach

We estimate the price elasticity of residential district heating demand in Denmark using the Blundell–Bond two-step generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator and a sample of 152,913 observations covering the period of 2015 to 2019. Moreover, we analyze the heterogeneity in the response to district heating price increases among various household groups and investigate the distributional consequences of policies that increase the price of district heating. To this end, we measure the effects of a price increase on district heating bills, consumption, and emissions. We find a short-run price elasticity of −0.530 and a long-run price elasticity of −0.638. Higher consumption levels are associated with dwelling age, dwelling size, homeownership, income, number of household members, and whether households receive heating allowances. We find significant evidence that price elasticity varies across household groups: Low-income households, intensive consumers, single households, and households in older and smaller dwellings are more responsive to price changes than their respective counterparts. We also demonstrate that a 10% increase in the price of district heating would increase expenditures in high-income and low-income households by 7.18% and 1.16% (ceteris paribus), respectively. Our findings therefore have important implications for the evaluation of price policies aimed at reducing emissions and the distributional impacts of such measures.

Smart sensors network for accurate indirect heat accounting in apartment buildings

A new method for accurate indirect heat accounting in apartment buildings has been recently developed by the Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM). It is based on a data driven approach aimed to the smart networking of any type of indirect heat allocation devices, which can provide, for each heat delivery point of an apartment building, measurements or estimations of the temperature difference between the heat transfer fluid and the indoor environment. The analysis of the data gathered from the devices installed on the heating bodies, together with the measurements of the overall building heat consumption provided by direct heat metering, allows the evaluation of the characteristic thermal model parameters of heating bodies at actual installation and working conditions. Thus overcoming the negative impact on accuracy of conventional indirect heat accounting due to off-design operation, in which these measurement systems normally operate. The method has been tested on conventional heat cost allocators (HCA), and on innovative smart radiator thermostatic valves developed by CSEM. The evaluations were carried out at the centralized heating system mock-up of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRIM), and also in a real building in Neuchatel, Switzerland. The method has proven to be an effective tool to improve the accuracy of indirect heat metering systems; compared to conventional HCA systems, the error on the individual heating bill is reduced by 20%–50%.

Does cash money solve energy poverty? Assessing the impact of household heating allowances in Spain

Energy poverty could be identified as the inability of households to attain a necessitated level of domestic energy services. Since Boardman's pioneering studies, EU Member States have progressively tackled this issue through both mitigating and structural measures. Among the former are the financial aids that seek to support vulnerable households in paying their heating bills. These widespread measures usually suffer from design problems, which can affect their efficacy. That is precisely what this paper aims to provide: an analysis of the effectiveness of the Thermal Social Allowance (TSA) in one of the Member States (Spain), as well as a proposal to redefine it, i.e. the Thermal Energy Cheque (TEC), to address some of its limitations.For that purpose, this paper proposes a bottom-up methodology to characterise Spanish households’ theoretical expenditures for heating and domestic hot water. Then, the TEC proposal integrates this methodology in the calculation of an energy cheque that would enhance the current TSA policy. Furthermore, an impact assessment is carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the two measures in reducing winter energy poverty.The main findings show that in 2019 the limitations in the design of the TSA led to a reduction of winter energy poverty of only 1%, whereas the implementation of the TEC would reduce it by 11%. Nevertheless, both are costly measures that do not tackle other constituent factors of energy poverty, e.g. low energy efficiency of housing, making them unsuitable as medium-long term policies.

Techno-economic analysis of implementing thermal storage for peak load shaving in a campus district heating system with waste heat from the data centre

Peak load has significant impacts on the economic and environmental performance of district heating systems. Future sustainable district heating systems will integrate thermal storages and renewables to shave their peak heat demand from traditional heat sources. This article analysed the techno-economic potential of implementing thermal storage for peak load shaving, especially for the district heating systems with waste heat recovery. A campus district heating system in Norway was chosen as the case study. The system takes advantage of the waste heat from the campus data centre. Currently, about 20% of the heating bill is paid for the peak load, and a mismatch between the available waste heat and heat demand was detected. The results showed that introducing water tank thermal storage brought significant effects on peak load shaving and waste heat recovery. Those effects saved up to 112 000 EUR heating bills annually, and the heating bill paid for the peak load could be reduced by 15%. Meanwhile, with the optimal sizing and operation, the payback period of the water tank could be decreased to 13 years. Findings from this study might help the heat users to evaluate the economic feasibility of introducing thermal storage.

Techno-Economic Investigation of an Integrated Boiler–Solar Water Heating/Cooling System: A Case Study

With the increase in oil prices, developing nations end up paying expensive electricity and heating bill. This leading study investigates the experimental development of a new energy-saving system by integrating a solar water heater and solar cooling absorption cycle with a conventional boiler for domestic hot water and heating purposes. The heating and cooling load calculations for space heating of the building were calculated using TRNSYS 14.1 computer software and the results were used in calculating the energy-saving value. A 65 flat plate solar collector-chiller system with a total surface area of 130 m2 was integrated with the boiler and used to supply heating and cooling for a three-story building (1500 m2) in Al Bayt University, Jordan. The integrated system helped to save energy, reduced the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere, supplied hot water, and space heating/cooling requirements to the building year-round, and reduced the overall energy cost of heating and cooling by 55% and 48%, respectively. Moreover, the techno-economic analysis showed that the payback period of the combined system with a total cost of $18,650 is roughly 2.5-year. The solar water heating/cooling system has the potential to provide more than 50% of the house energy demand free of charge with a significant reduction in carbon footprint.

Design, Valuation and Comparison of Demand Response Strategies for Congestion Management

Decarbonisation of heat and transport will cause congestion issues in distribution networks. To avoid expensive network investments, demand flexibility is necessary to move loads from peak to off-peak periods. We provide a method and metric for assessing and selecting the optimal demand response strategy for a given network congestion scenario and applied it to a case study network in Coleraine, Northern Ireland. We proposed a Price Approximation/Mean Grouping strategy to deal with the issue of congestions occurring at the lowest-price period in real-time pricing schemes. The Mean Grouping strategy increased the average lowest-price hours from 1.32 to 3.76. We show that a three-cluster tariff is effective in solving medium congestion issues in Northern Ireland and could save consumers an average of £117/year on their heating bill. However, for networks with low headroom suffering from serious congestion issues, a smart control strategy is needed.

The Environmental Consequences of Electrifying Space Heating.

Decarbonization may require the efficient electrification of applications, like natural gas furnaces for space heating, that currently involve burning fossil fuels. The environmental consequences of such a fuel switch depend on location and time. Here we show that, in most parts of the U.S., a switch from natural gas to electric heat pumps would raise household heating bills and increase damages from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other pollutants. For single-family homes in 658 of the 883 locations we analyze, a shift to heat pumps would increase annual hourly peak demand for electricity. For 265 of these 658 locations peak demand already occurred in winter; for the remaining 393 heat pumps would shift peak demand from summer to winter. An economy-wide tax on CO2 emissions designed to substantially decarbonize electricity generation would make a switch to heat pumps beneficial for the environment and make electrified heating cheaper than burning natural gas. However, a sufficiently large tax would increase heating bills in cold parts of the country much more than in places with more moderate climates, even while making electric heat pumps cheaper to operate than natural gas furnaces. This differential impact raises questions about the feasibility of a carbon tax that is returned to each citizen as a uniform dividend.

Willingness to Pay for Renovation of Multi-Flat Buildings and to Share the Costs of Renovation

The paper deals with the problems linked to the energy renovation of multi-apartment buildings and developed a case study in Lithuania with the aim to assess the household’s willingness to pay for energy renovation and to define the main barriers preventing the households from making decisions to renovate their apartments in residential buildings. Energy renovation provides huge energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential and though policies and measures exist to promote large scale energy renovation, there are still many barriers and the pace of energy renovation is still very slow, especially in new EU member states and former Soviet Union members. These countries have inherited old, energy inefficient residential buildings from their Soviet past, and their inhabitants are locked in energy poverty because of their inability to renovate their apartments. This paper analyzed the current situation in the selected country and presents the results of a case study on willingness to pay (WTP) for energy renovation in Lithuanian residential buildings. The survey of 104 Lithuanian households living in unrenovated multi-flat buildings was conducted. The 39 multiple choice questions were asked in order to define the main barriers and drivers of energy renovation. The main results of this pilot study indicated that there are several important organizational and economic barriers for energy renovation in multi-flat buildings and current policies and support schemes have not addressed them in a proper way. The high heating bills and low heat comfort in apartments were the main drivers of energy renovation decision-making for households, however, inadequate state support, reluctance to take a loan due to low income, and inability to make collective decisions on renovation due to the lack of cooperation and housing association were the main barriers that prevented them from this step. New innovative schemes like the Energy Service Companies ESCO model with consolidated billing can be applied to address the identified barriers.

Performance Analysis of an Innovative ORC-based Micro-scale CCHP System under Lebanese Conditions

Considering the high demand for cooling, heating and electricity and with more than 300 annual sunny days, an innovative hybrid biomass-solar driven micro-scale tri-generation system is proposed to provide cooling, heating and electricity under Lebanese conditions. The system comprises an organic Rankine cycle-based combined heat and power unit, a liquid desiccant dehumidification unit and a dew point evaporative cooling unit. A complete technical, economic and environmental assessment of the tri-generation system is performed to assess its applicability and feasibility. Employing a 2 kWe ORC-based CHP unit, the useful heat output ranges between 4.2 and 11.75 kW, with an electric power capacity between 0.7 and 1.92 kW. The maximum hourly cooling capacity delivered by the coupled cooling and dehumidification system is attained in August with 8.7 kW. The tri-generation system allows annual savings of 8225 USD on the heating bill, 960 USD on the electricity bill and 950 USD on the cooling bill compared to conventional production technologies. In addition, the CO2 emissions reduction ranges between 3.1 tons in June and 9.2 tons in March. The results of this study demonstrate the large potential of using such tri-generation systems under the Lebanese conditions compared to the conventional separate energy production technologies.

Research of technical condition and methods of heat networks restoration in Ukraine

Problem statement. Central heating systems in Ukraine need to be renovated and upgraded. Taking into account the constant growth of energy price, the complex modernization of the infrastructure of these systems is more than ever relevant. Most heat losses in heat supply systems occur during the heat transportation, therefore proper attention should be paid to the issue of energy conservation in existing heating networks (total heat losses reach 30…40 % on average). A significant part of the pipelines of thermal networks, built in the middle of the last century, has already completely exhausted its resource and they are in a critical condition. As a result, there are large heat losses, economic losses due to frequent emergencies, significant volumes of repairs, deteriorating quality of services for the population, accelerating the aging of the heating system, etc. These pipelines require an immediate replacement. Purpose. The purpose of this article is to study the technical state of heat networks in Ukraine and to systematize the basic methods of their restoration. Conclusions. The authors analyze the main defects that arise during the design and operation of heat conductors with mineral wool and polyurethane foam insulation, their main causes and consequences. Methods of extending the operational life of the Ukrainian heat networks, aimed at eliminating these defects, contribute to the reduction of heat losses in the transport of heat from the source to the consumer and to ensure the reliability of the heating system. Rehabilitation of the central heating systems will enable residents to get better climatic conditions in apartments, as well as significantly lower heating bills. In addition, reducing the cost of fuel and energy will lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

News Briefs

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