A GIS-Based planning approach for urban power and natural gas distribution grids with different heat pump scenarios

Next to building insulation, heat pumps driven by electrical compressors (eHPs) or by gas engines (geHPs) can be used to reduce primary energy demand for heating. They come with different investment requirements, operating costs and emissions caused. In addition, they affect both the power and gas grids, which necessitates the assessment of both infrastructures regarding grid expansion planning. To calculate costs and CO2 emissions, 2000 electrical load profiles and 180 different heat demand profiles for single-family homes were simulated and heat pump models were applied. In a case study for a neighborhood energy model, the load profiles were assigned to buildings in an example town using public data on locations, building age and energetic refurbishment variants. In addition, the town's gas distribution network and low voltage grid were modeled. Power and gas flows were simulated and costs for required grid extensions were calculated for 11% and 16% heat pump penetration. It was found that eHPs have the highest energy costs but will also have the lowest CO2 emissions by 2030 and 2050. For the investigated case, power grid investments of 11,800 euros/year are relatively low compared to gas grid connection costs of 70,400 euros/year. If eHPs and geHPs are combined, a slight reduction of overall costs is possible, but emissions would rise strongly compared to the all-electric case.