Inefficient building electrification risks prolonging fossil fuels
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/07/220728192736.htm
Direct fossil fuel consumption by buildings, burned in water heaters, furnaces, and other heating sources, account for nearly 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States…Published in Scientific Reports, a journal of the Nature Portfolio, the study presented novel modeling of multiple building electrification scenarios, and found that this seasonal surge in winter energy demand will be difficult to satisfy through current renewable sources, if buildings switch to low-efficiency electrified heating…
The researchers also calculated the amount of additional renewable energy, specifically wind and solar energy, that would need to be generated to meet this increased demand in electricity. Without storage, demand response, or other tactics to manage grid load, to meet winter heating peaks, buildings would require a 28x increase in January wind generation or a 303x increase in January solar energy…
But with more efficient renewables, such as air source heat pumps (ASHPs) or ground source heat pumps (GSHPs), buildings would only require 4.5x more winter wind generation, or 36x more solar energy – thus “flattening” the Falcon Curve…
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