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Data-driven decarbonization of residential heating systems

Published: 08 December 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Heating buildings using fossil fuels such as natural gas, propane and oil makes up a significant proportion of the aggregate carbon emissions every year. Because of this, there is a strong interest in decarbonizing residential heating systems using new technologies such as electric heat pumps. In this paper, we conduct a data-driven optimization study to analyze the potential of replacing gas heating with electric heat pumps to reduce CO2 emission in a city-wide distribution grid. We conduct an in-depth analysis of gas consumption in the city and the resulting carbon emissions. We then present a flexible multi-objective optimization (MOO) framework that optimizes carbon emission reduction while also maximizing other aspects of the energy transition such as carbon-efficiency, and minimizing energy inefficiency in buildings. Our results show that replacing gas with electric heat pumps has the potential to cut carbon emissions by up to 81%. We also show that optimizing for other aspects such as carbon-efficiency and energy inefficiency introduces tradeoffs with carbon emission reduction that must be considered during transition. Lastly, we present preliminary results that shed light into the expected load exerted on the electric grid by transitioning gas to electric heat pumps.

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Evaluating Carbon-Emission Efficiency in China’s Construction Industry: An SBM-Model Analysis of Interprovincial Building HeatingSustainability10.3390/su1606241116:6(2411)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2024
  • (2023)No Free Lunch: Analyzing the Cost of Deep Decarbonizing Residential Heating SystemsProceedings of the 14th International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference10.1145/3634769.3634799(4-10)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Modeling of Annual and Daily Electricity Demand of Retrofitted Heat Pumps based on Gas Smart Meter DataProceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation10.1145/3600100.3623745(248-251)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023

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cover image ACM Conferences
BuildSys '22: Proceedings of the 9th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation
November 2022
535 pages
ISBN:9781450398909
DOI:10.1145/3563357
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 08 December 2022

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Author Tags

  1. decarbonization
  2. electric heat pumps
  3. optimization

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Overall Acceptance Rate 148 of 500 submissions, 30%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Evaluating Carbon-Emission Efficiency in China’s Construction Industry: An SBM-Model Analysis of Interprovincial Building HeatingSustainability10.3390/su1606241116:6(2411)Online publication date: 14-Mar-2024
  • (2023)No Free Lunch: Analyzing the Cost of Deep Decarbonizing Residential Heating SystemsProceedings of the 14th International Green and Sustainable Computing Conference10.1145/3634769.3634799(4-10)Online publication date: 28-Oct-2023
  • (2023)Modeling of Annual and Daily Electricity Demand of Retrofitted Heat Pumps based on Gas Smart Meter DataProceedings of the 10th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation10.1145/3600100.3623745(248-251)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2023

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