Clean energy transition – focus on the heating sector

The European Union has planned to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions about 80% to 95%, and to increase the share of renewable energy to achieve the share of renewable energy at least 55% in the gross final energy consumption by 2050. As most of the end-use energy in Europe, or well above 60 %, is for heating, these targets will put more stress on the heating sector. So far, much of the focus in the emission reduction has been on the electricity sector. Therefore, the efficient coupling of renewable energy integration to heat and heating will be part of an optimal clean energy transition. This paper develops optimisation-based models on national (Finland) and sub-national level (Helsinki) to include the heating sector in an energy transition. The models are based on transient simulation of the energy system, coupling VRE through power-to-heat schemes to the heating energy production system. We used large-scale wind power schemes as VRE in both cases. The results indicate that due to different system limitations and boundary conditions, stronger curtailment strategies accompanied by large heat pump schemes would be necessary to bring a major impact in the heating sector. On a national level, the best cases considered were able to produce wind-derived heat around 40% of the annual heat demand. On a city level, fossil-based heat and power production (CHP) could be significantly reduced leading in best cases close to 70% CO2 emission reductions. Though the results are indicative and are site dependent, they indicate major opportunities for VRE in sectoral coupling to heat production.