Heat pumps in Denmark—From ugly duckling to white swan (original) (raw)

Socioeconomic potential for introducing large-scale heat pumps in district heating in Denmark

Journal of Cleaner Production, 2016

Denmark has a national political goal of a 100% renewable energy supply in 2050. This requires a comprehensive transition of the energy system. For some decades, district heating in Denmark has been contributing to high fuel efficiency as well as to the integration of the electricity and heating sectors. Largescale compression heat pumps would improve the integration between the district heating and power sectors by utilising the fluctuations in the supply from wind power, solar photo voltaic and other sources. Previous studies indicate that the introduction of heat pumps in Denmark will have a positive impact on the total costs for energy supply in the transition towards 100% renewable energy. In this paper, this is further investigated to assess the feasibility of heat pumps in the Danish energy system. The assessment is made by applying two different energy system analysis tools, named EnergyPLAN and MODEST. The comparison and discussion of these tools is a secondary purpose of the study. In general, the results show a potential for introducing heat pumps in Denmark between 2 and 4 GW-thermal power and a total potential benefit around 100 M€/year in 2025.

Air source heat pumps and their role in the Swedish energy system

2012

Newly produced air source heat pumps can provide heat energy from outdoor air at temperature as low as-20°C. As a result they could be utilized during most days of the year even in the cold Nordic climates. The drawback of air source heat pumps is the reduction in efficiency as the outdoor air become colder, resulting in lower heat supply in times when it is most needed. Despite its inverse relationship between efficiency and outdoor temperature, air source heat pumps were installed in 57000 detached houses in Sweden during 2010 alone, which is 3% of the total detached houses stock. That makes air source heat pumps the most sold heating technology for detached houses in Sweden during 2010, 1.6 times more than the number of installations of ground source heat pump and 3 times more than the number of connections of detached houses to district heating during the same year. Similar trends can be found in other Nordic countries. This study compares the use of an air source heat pump with other existing commercial technologies in detached houses and analyzes the impacts on primary energy use, on final energy use, on electricity production and on costs benefits for house owners. It was found that converting existing electric heated Swedish detaches houses to district heating with biomass based CHP or bed-rock heat pump could reduce the use of resources, which could benefit Sweden as a society. Converting electric heated Swedish detaches houses to district heating or pellets stove could reduce power demand and level out the power demand load curve. That would benefit utilities of power supply as it could secure power supply. However cost effectiveness in one of most important drivers for house owners of detached houses to choose energy efficiency measures. For that reason house owners may most likely benefit by the installation of air-source heat pumps. Heat pump were available since the 70s but they got their large breakthrough only during 2005 (Nowacki 2007

Diffusion, user experiences and performance of UK domestic heat pumps

Energy Science and Technology, 2013

Heat pumps for space and water heating are recognised by EU governments as a key technology to meet carbon reduction and renewable energy targets, especially as electricity supplies are decarbonised. As a result of many socio-economic and technical factors, heat pumps are well-established in some EU countries, while in others including the UK, the market is immature. A field trial of heat pumps, found that, especially before specialist intervention, UK domestic heat pumps performed considerably less efficiently than those in Germany and Switzerland. This paper reports on the experiences and satisfaction of users in the field trial and the influence of technical and user factors on system efficiency. A comparative site analysis indicates that many interacting factors affect heat pump efficiency, including dwelling energy efficiency; heat pump system design and installation quality; and some of the characteristics and different heating behaviours of private householders and social housing tenants. The implications for low carbon energy policies, heat pump design and diffusion are discussed.

Research on heat pump

Heat pumps for domestic heating and hot water supply are currently a niche technology in many EU countries, but they are increasingly expected to form an important role in a low carbon future. This is largely because a future of rapidly decar-bonised electricity supply is imagined, in which using electricity via heat pumps is one of the lowest carbon heating options. However, heat pumps are not necessarily a low carbon option at present. In the UK, with fairly carbon-intensive electricity and where natural gas is available for heating, heat pumps do not make significant carbon savings for most householders.

The Role of Heat Pump Technologies in the Design of Future Sustainable Energy Systems

In this paper, it is shown that in support of its ability to improve the overall economic cost- effectiveness and flexibility of the Danish energy system, the financially feasible integration of large-scale heat pumps with existing CHP units, is critically sensitive to the operational mode of the heat pump vis-à-vis the operational coefficient of performance (COP), which is set by the temperature level of the heat source. When using only ambient air as the heat source, the total heat production costs increases by about 10%, while the partial use of condensed flue gas from the CHP unit as a heat source results in an 8% cost reduction. Furthermore, the operational analysis shows that when a large-scale heat pump is integrated with an existing CHP unit, the projected spot market situation in Nord Pool, which reflects a growing share of wind power and heat-bound power generation electricity, will reduce the operational hours of the CHP unit significantly, making the heat pump a preferre...

Ecology of Heat Pump Performance: A Socio-technical Analysis

Sustainability in Energy and Buildings

The UK government's heat strategy is to reduce emissions from buildings "to virtually zero by 2050" through a combination of technologies such as heat pumps (HPs). As part of this strategy, it introduced the Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) Scheme to incentivise the installation of HPs in the residential sector. Using a sociotechnical approach and case study method developed by the authors in the field of energy research and building, this paper explores the reasons for variation in performance of HPs supported by this scheme. Twentyone sites/households were selected for investigation. Due to limited space, this paper does not seek to present all cases, but instead focuses on key insights from five cases that were originally thought to be poorly performing. The findings highlight the complex ecology of a sociotechnical system in determining performance. We will show that system performance emerges from the dynamic interaction of monitoring system, heat pump system configuration and occupants' heating practices and heating load factor. Limitations, practical implications and scope for future research are briefly discussed.

Aalborg Universitet Heat Roadmap Europe Large-Scale Electric Heat Pumps in District Heating Systems

2017

The Heat Roadmap Europe (HRE) studies estimated a potential increase of the district heating (DH) share to 50% of the entire heat demand by 2050, with approximately 25–30% of it being supplied using large-scale electric heat pumps. This study builds on this potential and aims to document that such developments can begin now with technologies currently available. We present a database and the status of the technology and its ability of expansion to other European locations by reviewing experiences aimed at further research or application in the heating industry. This is based on a survey of the existing capacity of electric large-scale heat pumps with more than 1 MW thermal output, operating in European DH systems. The survey is the first database of its kind containing the technical characteristics of these heat pumps, and provides the basis for the analysis of this paper. By quantifying the heat sources, refrigerants, efficiency and types of operation of 149 units with 1580 MW of t...

Cygnet or ugly duckling–what makes the difference? A tale of heat-pump market developments in Sweden

2005

Who can pick a winner? Since 1974, various types of targeted support have at different times been directed at the development of the heat pump market in Sweden -which in the following decades oscillated violently between soaring sales and collapse. Eventually, however, small heat pumps for space heating of residential buildings have in recent years securely established themselves as a mature and competitive technology within the Swedish energy system. This presentation portrays the events and actors that defined the formation and transformation processes of the heat pump market segment in Sweden, extracting pieces of experience that contribute to our improved understanding of how combinations of policy instruments, their application and termination, can affect whether a technology is perceived and received by the market as a handsome swan-to-be or no more than a simple duckling.

Heat pumps and global residential heating

Electrification is seen as an important global contributor to mitigation of climate change, because low carbon electricity can, in theory, replace current fossil fuel use in buildings and surface transport. Heat pumps are the key technology for delivering electrification of heating. This paper investigates how heat pump adoption in the residential sector would affect total and peak electricity demand globally and for individual countries. It also analyses the role of improving efficiency in reducing heating energy demand. A model of global heating energy use has been developed. This geographical model uses historical population-weighted temperature data, and assumptions about heating energy use and the efficiency of heat pumps to give peak instantaneous demand , calculated at three-hourly time steps. Results show that heating energy need is dominated globally by China, which is responsible for almost 40 % of the total. For the UK, 100 % adoption of heat pumps, all other things being...