System Effects of Improved Energy Efficiency in Swedish District-Heated Buildings

Sammanfattning: To alleviate global warming, European-Union member states must reduce primary energy use, emit less carbon dioxide (CO2), and increase renewable energy use. Buildings constitute a great potential for energy savings, but saving energy in district-heated buildings influences combined heat and power (CHP) production, other electricity generation, and global CO2 emissions. This thesis investigates the system effects from Swedish district heating production caused by district heating demand changes due to energy conservation in buildings. The cost-optimising linear programming modelling tools MODEST and FMS, the latter developed in the context of this thesis, are used to describe present district heating production and to investigate the impact of heat-demand reductions in twelve Swedish district heating systems, four of them representing all Swedish district heating. Energy savings in district-heated, multi-family residential buildings yield a lower, more seasonally levelled district heating demand. These demand changes mainly reduce use of fossil-fuel and biomass for heat production. CHP production is significantly reduced if it supplies intermediate or peak district heating load. The ?system value (ratio between generated CHP electricity and produced district heating) increases by demand reductions if CHP mainly supplies base district heating load. CO2 emissions due to district heat production depend on the approach used for CO2 assessment of electricity, and are generally reduced with heat demand reductions, unless the share of CHP production is large and the reduced fuel use yields smaller emission reductions than the emission increase from power production that replaces reduced CHP generation. In total, heat demand reductions reduce CO2 emissions due to Swedish district heating, and the district heating systems even constitute a carbon sink at certain energy conservation levels. If saved biomass replaces fossil fuels elsewhere, a lower heat demand reduces CO2 emissions for every studied district heating system.