Potentials and levels for the electrification of space heating in buildings. Final report

For reaching the EU’s climate goals the space heating sector is of exceptionally high relevance. Heating and cooling accounts for 50% of the EU final energy consumption; approximately 75% of the heat demand is covered from fossil fuels and around 60% of the overall heat demand is consumed in buildings. These numbers illustrate that decarbonising the space heating sector is a crucial factor for reaching greenhouse gas neutrality in the EU by 2050. Several studies and scenarios point to electrification as a main solution for decarbonisation of space heating. However, there are different possible implementations for electrification of heat: One option is direct electrification, in particular by installing decentral heat pumps in buildings or central heat pumps in district heating and, partially, direct electric boilers. Another option is indirect electrification based on synthetic energy carries produced from electricity from renewable energy sources (RES-E), namely hydrogen or e-fuels (in particular synthetic methane). The objective of this study is to quantitatively analyse different possible levels of these various ways of direct and indirect electrification. The analysis looks at such scenarios from a technical and economic perspective. As a result the scenario with the lowest costs (i.e. a cost-effective level of direct and indirect electrification) is identified and barriers (from today’s viewpoint) for realising this cost-effective level are discussed. For these analyses a modelling framework consisting of eight interacting sector models was applied covering the building stock, the energy supply (power, synthetic energy carriers, district heat) sector and infrastructures (electricity and gaseous energy carriers). The (cost) optimisation and simulation models cover all EU-27 member states (MS) with a high spatial, temporal and technological resolution. Due to close interaction of the heating sector with other energy sectors the modelling framework covered not only space heating but the whole European energy system also including e.g. the energy demand of the transport sector and industry. The modelling covers the time period up to 2050, where greenhouse gas neutrality is to be reached in the EU. Even though the year 2050 is in the focus of this study, the time steps in between were modelled as well. At the core of the scenario design is a set of in total 12 scenarios each reflecting a particular target for one energy carrier in terms “share of heated floor area” (e.g. the scenario “direct electrification 60%” defines a scenario in which 60% of the heated floor area in all MS has to be heated by direct electric heating system; the mix of heating technologies for the remaining 40% were optimised by the building stock model).