Planning of the district heating system in copenhagen from an economic perspective comparing energy-savings versus fossil-free supply
Abstract
The Danish government has adopted a long-term energy policy of being independent of fossil fuels by 2050, and that the energy supply for buildings should be independent of fossil fuels by 2035. Therefore, urgent action is needed to meet the requirements for the future energy system. One way of becoming independent of fossil fuels is to energy upgrade the existing building stock and change the energy supply to renewable energy sources. A sustainable way of providing space heating (SH) and domestic hot water (DHW) to buildings in densely populated areas is through the use of district heating (DH). This paper is a theoretical investigation of the DH system in Copenhagen, where heat supply is compared to heat savings in buildings from an economic perspective. Supplying the existing building stock with heat from renewable energy supply technologies e.g. low temperature district heating (LTDH) from geothermal heating plants, may lead to oversized heating plants that are too expensive to build compared to implementing energy savings. Therefore reducing heat demand of existing buildings before investing in supply capacity will save society half the investment, indicating the importance of carrying out energy savings now.
Info
Conference Paper, 2012
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
